The first point I chose for field recording was called Gongchen Bridge, a large historic bridge built in the fourth year of the Ming Dynasty and collapsed in the eighth year of the Shunzhi Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty. The bridge was rebuilt in the 53rd year of the Kangxi reign. On the east side of the bridge is the Canal Culture Square; the square has a shopping supermarket, and there is the antique architecture of the teahouse and singing theatre stage. I remember when I was a kid, I used to come to the square every weekend to hang out, and there were many events in the square during major traditional festivals, such as the lantern show at the Lantern Festival and the annual fireworks display. So when I did this project, the first place that came to my mind for recording was this side of the Gongchen Bridge, which I’m very familiar with. But, when I went there this time since I hadn’t been back in China for almost three years, it changed a lot, not to mention the memories I had of it as a child.

My SOUND WALK was conducted with this red line on the map, and I walked from the south end of the line to the north end, and the sounds along the way had different dynamics. At the south end, there were almost as many shops in the area, so there were relatively more people, and I could hear people discussing and some of the shops playing promotional loudspeakers. I also listened to the sound of a gyroscope, which was also recorded in the plaza, and when I heard it in the distance, I thought it was the sound of children playing with firecrackers (a kind of firecracker that explodes when thrown on the ground with force). At the north end of the road are some tree-lined paths for people to come and walk and exercise. So in this area, the sounds are all natural ambient sounds, and I could also hear the sound of a ship’s engine going by. The place where the amplitude of the sound was the greatest was at the centre of the route, that was also the head of the Gongchen Bridge. Crowds of people converged there, some taking photos, some buying things at roadside stalls, and there were also some older people discussing in dialect.

After I listened to all my field recordings in the Gongchen bridge area, I felt that the sound of this area is entirely different from what it was ten years ago; when I was a child, I remember that on the west side of the bridge, which is now a more commercialized neighborhood, there used to be a lot of vendors who would come on bicycles to sell food that they had made, and those sounds of shouting and selling were very nostalgic for me, and now all of that has disappeared because the government doesn’t allow these vendors to freely The government doesn’t allow these vendors to sell food freely. This may also be a negative emotional impact of the change for some of the more nostalgic people.