Fieldwork 1: Soundwalk in Tsim Sha Tsui

Soundscape Project – A trip to Tsim Sha Tsui

You can find the soundtracks here: https://soundcloud.com/olympia-hui/sets/soundscape

In this soundscape fieldwork project, me and two of my groupmates went to Tsim Sha Tsui and do a soundwalk for about 2.5 hours. We wandered around the TST pier and some nearby places. Through this project, I’ve found that I hear more sound than I usually do, some even I won’t notice normally.

Tsim Sha Tsui is a place full of historical value. It was once the transportation junction of Hong Kong since the Star Ferry Pier and the Kowloon-Canton Railway (KCR) terminal both located at Tsim Sha Tsui. More than that, during the early 19^th century, an incident happened at Tsim Sha Tsui called the “Lin Wie Hee incident” which was one of the causes of the First Opium War. Therefore, it is said that Tsim Sha Tsui is actually witnessing the changes in Hong Kong history.

Apart from historical value, Tsim Sha Tsui is also famous for its cultural value. First of all, it’s the place where people usually go during festival time. The streets are crowded and packed with people during every festival. Lights and installations will be set up to decorate the street. Besides of festival culture, Tsim Sha Tsui is also known as the “United Nation” in Hong Kong since people can find different cultures there including the South-Asian, the British, the Korean and also the Muslim. There are different buildings representing these cultures including the Chungking Mansion, the Peninsula Hotel, the Islam Mosque and the Korean street.

Back to our project, we recorded a total of 9 soundtracks during the walk. Each soundtrack represents a specific culture or natural value which we found them interesting. First of all, for the cultural aspects, we recorded the sound of a wedding. One of the Hong Kong Marriage Registry is located at Tsim Sha Tsui, just next to the Cultural Centre, where many Hong Kong people choose to have their ceremony there because of the breath-taking sea view. From the soundtrack, we can hear the people are calling others to take a group photo. Although it’s noisy, we can still feel their excitement through their voices.

Secondly, we recorded two tracks of tourists speaking. The two soundtracks are tourists speaking English and Mandarin respectively. During our soundwalk, we met a lot of tourists from different places as can be told from their skin colours and their languages. Hong Kong always attract people from all over the world no matter which cultural background they’re from. This is because of Hong Kong’s history. Hong Kong’s culture is a combination of the Western and the Chinese since Hong Kong had been under the rule of British Colonial Government from 1841 to 1997. During this period, there are many cultural integration and it somehow shaped the tourism culture nowadays. The Western people hope to know more about the Chinese culture through travelling to Hong Kong and vice versa.

Thirdly, we went to the Star Ferry Pier. It could be the most remarkable spot in Tsim Sha Tsui. It has a very long history of development where it was built since 1898, which is about a decade ago. Before the Cross-Harbour Tunnel was built, it was the only transportation connecting Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. Therefore, it had a high usage in the past. Although the number of people taking the ferries is decreasing, it is still a favourable transportation among tourists. We recorded two soundtracks that are related to the Star Ferries. The first soundtrack is the ticket vending machine. The ticket vending machine has a longer history than the octopus card. Before the invention of the Octopus card, people all used the machines to buy the tickets for taking the ferries. All you need to do is to insert required amounts of coins and the machine will give you a plastic token which is sometimes blue or brown. The second soundtrack we recorded is the sound before boarding. There are mainly two types of sound in the soundtrack, one is the electric-controlled gate and the other one is the metal chain. Both are used to secure the people waiting at the pier. We can see a combination of the past and the modern here.

After that, we recorded the sound of the movements of luggage. In the soundtrack, there is muffled sound of the moving wheels of the luggage. As we wandered around Tsim Sha Tsui, we found that there are many tourists carrying luggage, which are usually Chinese tourists. We think it’s because there are many luxurious stores located on Canton Road which attracted the grey goods traders or the rich people in China. Also, it’s related to the implementation of policy on multiple-entry permits in 2009. The problem still exists even in 2017.

Another soundtrack is the Anti-Falun Gong. In the soundtrack, you can hear noisy and repetitive speeches saying that Falun Gong is bad for people. The sound is clamorous which makes people feel very uncomfortable and annoying. The reason why they chose to promote their beliefs in Tsim Sha Tsui is that there are many mainland tourists. The Falun Gong and the Anti-Falun Gong association are both from China which they mainly target on mainland people. They see Tsim Sha Tsui as a favourable spot for them to spread their messgaes.

Last for cultural sound, we also recorded the sound of the construction work at the Avenue of Stars. The construction work creates many noise which makes people uncomfortable. The sound is loud and annoying, and also earsplitting. It reduces the number of tourists. It comes from the renewal project of the Avenue of Stars. It was built in 2004 and now the government introduced the Augmented Reality (AR) technology there to increase Hong Kong’s competitiveness and can attract more tourists.

As for natural sound, we recorded the sound of waves. You can hear strong and repetitive sound of the big waves. The Victoria Harbour is renowned for its deepness and wideness. These are favourable for goods trading which the harbor leads Hong Kong economy and tourism for the past decade. However, rapid reclamation these years reduces its advantages and attractiveness.

To conclude, the sound we recorded in this fieldwork is mostly a low-fi environment. Yet, we can still find out a lot of cultural essence in Tsim Sha Tsui which helped construct it as a renowned tourist spot in Hong Kong.

Assignment 1: Soundscape Project Analysis

Arctic Live / Arctic Soundscape Project/Phase I

Yan Man Yin, Erin     15216896

     Soundscape studies, in general, is to consider the sound created by the living things or the environment in a particular place. From these project, people can get to know more about the environment of those places by listening to these sound recorded. Soundscape can give people a full picture of what is happening in a place and how things carry out different activities and movements. Most importantly, is to know the relationship between living things and the nature.

     The soundscape project I have chosen is an Arctic soundscape project carried out by Bernie Krause, Martyn Stewart, Kevin Colver, Bob Moore and other colleagues in 2006. These people are sound recordists, field researchers and ecologists. They have carried out a soundscape project at the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by spending two-week time there. The aim of this project is to study the habitat of the natural lives at the Arctic. Also, it is a great way to arouse people’s attention and alertness to the natural environment, according to Robert Moore, one of the sound recordists in the team.

     According to Bernie Krause, the founder of Wild Sanctuary, soundscape is the voice of the living habitat, and to the extend it connects with a perspective of health in the habitat, which is so critical. He agrees that people nowadays is more into this idea. Therefore, through this project, they recorded all the sound they heard at the Arctic.

     At the beginning of the video, there is only sound of wind blowing. There are not much living lives at the Arctic comparing to cities or jungles or forests due to the extreme climate there. However, the sound of wind blowing somehow creates a spacial concept or idea for people. It is easy to feel or to imagine the space at the location by listening to the sound. This is probably how soundscape works out. The second section is about the crew starting to record the sound. There is sound of people walking on fallen branches. It somehow gives out a lively picture as people usually imagine that there are no plants at the Arctic.  As the recording continues, there is wind blowing continuously and people’s heavy breath. It tells that the weather there might be very cold all the time and people can hardly breathe there.

     Another section of recording is the water flow. There is dynamic change as the velocity of water flow increases. The water flow increases maybe due to different reasons such as ice melting rapidly or there may be slopes. In my opinion, I think the first reason is most likely to be the explanation of why the water flow increases since global warming is getting much more serious these days.

     As the crew were recording the necessary data for the project, there is a slightly sound of the branches moving and cracking. This might be due to people sitting or pushing on the branches so that it creates the sound. Branches are not commonly seen in the imagination of people towards Arctic places. I think this is kind of interesting and people have to listen very carefully to sort it out from the recordings. According to the crew, they were hoping to record the sound of ice shifting and cracking since the warm temperature is favorable to the ice movements.

     Another part of the recordings is the ice cracking sound. It is made by people walking on the thin layer of ice and it cracks immediately. Along with the cracking sound, there is also sound of river flow. It is because the ice is right above the river, and when it cracks, people’s feet will just step right into the river.

     Besides, there is also another type of ice breaking sound. This time, the sound is much thicker and sharper than before. This is because the ice layer is also much thicker than the previous one. It sounds like glass breaking which gives me an impression that it is vulnerable.

     Another main purpose of this soundscape project is to raise people’s awareness and sensitivity towards global warming. All the ice shifting and cracking sounds were created due to the problem of global warming. If the temperature keeps rising, the ice will melt much rapidly and it might disappear after a short period of time. There might be no more ice cracking sound for people to listen anymore.

     I found this soundscape project very meaningful. It does not only shape the natural environment there nor record the sound, but it becomes an alarm for people to care for the environment even if the location is far away from where they live. If unfortunately, the ice really melts that fast and disappear in the future, this project will be very valuable as it captures sounds which won’t be created again.

     I have studied this project at least twice, once with visual on and one with visual off. I found that I was more focused on the sound when with visual off. I can even hear insignificant sound which helps to create a full image of the environment.