Fieldwork 2: Soundwalk in Stanley

Soundscape Project – A trip to Stanley

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

In the soundscape fieldwork project, me and two of my groupmates went to Stanley and do a soundwalk for 1.5 hours. We wandered around the Stanley market 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.

Stanley is a place full of historical value. An origin place of native Hong Kong Island people, named after the former UK Prime Minister “Lord Stanley”, during 1842, it was a temporary administrative centre of the British Colonial government. More than that, St. Stephen’s College was used as a concentration camp for the whites by Japanese army during the annexation of Hong Kong. Therefore, it is said that Stanley is actually witnessing the changes in Hong Kong history.

Apart from historical value, Stanley is also famous for its cultural value. First of all, it’s the place where people usually go for a walk on the wooden path at Stanley promenade, it construct in 2006, made by wood, when walking on the path you can hear the footstep clearly, also the sound from the playground.

Back to our project, we recorded a total of 14 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 a track at the entrance of Stanley market of tourists speaking the language that can’t distinguish they were speaking, they spoke loudly and sounded excited in the soundtrack are more than one people continuously speaking, during our soundwalk, we met a lot of tourists from different places as can be told from their skin colors and their languages. Hong Kong always attracts people from all over the world no matter which cultural background they’re from

Secondly, we recorded the conversation in the Stanley market .Stanley market is a great variety of products (eg. paintings/portraits, clothes, furnishings, souvenirs), most of the shop owners can speak at least 3 languages, and visitors are mostly tourists (evenly distributed among Asian tourists and foreigners). The soundtrack was conducted in non-fluent English and with some Japanese from the tourist from japan, they were bargaining about the price of a painting, bargaining culture in Hong Kong local market is common, there is much 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 Murray House. It could be the most remarkable spot in Stanley it used to be an old building in Central. However, in 1990 it moved to Stanley due to development of central, after revitalization there are restaurants. In 2015, the LINK took over this building it became a 3-level H&M store, many people criticized that H&M does not match with this historical building. Outside the Murray House, there are a few smoking workers complaining about their jobs are tired but low salaries, because of many repairing work in Hong Kong. The other side, new couple taking photos downstairs, with historical scenery and beautiful sea views, photographer yelling upstairs. We can see a combination of the past and the modern here.

After that, we recorded a local music playing from an indie shop, they play music for attracting tourists, and selling local clothes/ accessories. The song was composed by a Hong Kong local band called supper moment, a four-member Cantopop band formed in 2006, and the song they playing call 沙燕之歌, this is a theme song of a Hong Kong Film.

Another soundtrack is not local music, In the soundtrack, you can hear relaxing music from a bar and grill playing jazz, many foreigner chatting with each other. Next to the bar, coffee shop owner preparing for their costumer, introducing the menu to them, it would be a place that couple tourists love going there.

We also recorded the sound of the children laughter, repeated footsteps, ball bouncing, adults cheering, and enjoyable sound from children playing balls. The start of the football class, coach yelling rules to the children with taught in English, and they replying the coach excitedly, high-pitched footsteps created by the friction between shoes and the ground, the reason why class in English because nearby neighborhood are mostly foreigners.

Apart from football, there are also children playground at the Stanley plaza, it took over by The LINK, and refurbished in 2011, added two slides and some climbing facilities, residents which have children living in the public estate and luxury residential nearby.

As for natural sound, we recorded the sound of waves. You can hear strong and repetitive sound with not very heavy waves. It’s a good sea view where people usually go for taking wedding photo/committee photo, somebody was fishing there and hitting the rocks. There was calm water next to the sea, a child was looking for pebbles, throwing pebbles with his mother, some birds chirping at the begging, the pebbles dropping in the water.

To conclude, Stanley is a attractive place that full of historical place with long history, combination of Chinese and Western cultures. Yet, we can still find out a lot of cultural essence in Stanley which helped construct it as a renowned tourist spot in Hong Kong.