"listening to the world" me and the record player｜li wan
2024-08-29
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in 1977, hongqi no. 2 primary school was renamed minzhu road primary school. at the end of the semester, the province held its first unified examination. it was the most confusing exam for me: i had never seen some questions before, especially in chinese. i wrote down the answers that puzzled me after questions that i had never thought about.
on the day before the holiday, as usual, i went back to school to get my report card. everyone was spreading a piece of news, and when it came to me, i thought it couldn't be true: i scored 100 points in the exam, the only one in xuzhou.
in the afternoon, the team counselor, ms. sun xiuying, took me and wang weihong to the pengcheng photo studio to take pictures. she said that the pictures would be enlarged and hung up. i was the "learning model" and wang weihong was the solo singer of the propaganda team. her singing of "embroidering the golden plaque" made all of us feel incredible: every time she sang "embroidering premier zhou three times", tears flowed from her eyes.
we took pictures until dark. master cai, the most famous photographer in xuzhou, kept changing the scene and giving various instructions. i can't laugh, no matter how much i am teased. wang weihong can laugh, her smile is as beautiful as a flower, she is really magical.
when i walked out of the photo studio, my father was standing at the door. it turned out that he was worried that something might happen to me, so he asked around at school and came all the way. the shadows of the trees were swaying on huaihai road, and there were only a few of us on the road. we slowly walked up the big slope of huaihai road, turned left and continued uphill, turning into minzhu road. my father and teacher sun were talking enthusiastically. he was always very humble, and the way he tilted his head and bowed his body made him look shorter.
after the summer vacation, we changed from class 3 (2) to class 4 (2), and moved our classroom from the middle of the first floor to the first room at the east end. the first class of the new semester was, as usual, a speech by the head teacher. when the class was about to end, teacher zhan junjie asked me to go to the team office quickly, saying that teacher sun had something to talk to me about there.
i walked out the back door. the sunlight shone directly into the corridor, which was a bit dazzling for a moment. i walked into the sunlight and then into the deep shadows. the brigade headquarters was in the middle of the building. teacher sun saw me and motioned me to go to the next door. it was a long and narrow room with a window facing the small playground. there was a low cabinet on the left hand side of the door. on the low cabinet was a silver metal instrument. next to it was a blue suitcase. to the right of the suitcase, there was a row of vinyl records against the wall.
teacher sun stopped in front of the low cabinet, turned to me and said, "starting from this semester, the school radio station will be managed by the students. this is an honorable and important job. the brigade has decided that you will take on this important task." i really wanted to stand at attention and salute, and say "i guarantee to complete the task", but i felt that the occasion was not right, so i just moved my feet, met teacher sun's gaze, and nodded.
"first, turn on the amplifier." teacher sun pressed the button on the left side of the instrument, and a yellow light came on. i looked at the amplifier carefully. the upper left corner was inlaid with the words "red light" in celluloid. the remaining facade had two sockets on the left, each with a knob on top; and two larger knobs side by side on the right. behind the amplifier, there were several wires connected.
the low cabinet was ebony, the same color as our desks and chairs. teacher sun opened the cabinet door, took out the microphone with a base, and connected it to the jack on the left. then he dragged the wire through the gym opposite and placed the microphone on the table by the window.
the suitcase lid was opened, revealing a record player. i had seen record players in movies, and they would appear when the kmt female spies were about to dance. teacher sun took down the outermost record, took it out, and placed it on the turntable.
the bell rang suddenly, and there was a sound of desks and chairs moving in the building. then there were noisy voices and footsteps. classes poured out from the first and second floors, passed the exit next to the gym, and lined up on the playground. after the commands came one after another, the campus became quiet. dean huang shuwen appeared on the podium outside the gym window and began to speak. after the speech, the whole school did radio exercises. i observed teacher sun's operation and realized that the microphone, loudspeaker, and radio exercise music all came from this room. it was controlled in this way. i felt a faint vibration in my heart that i had learned some secret.
after the second class, there was a 15-minute break, and i came again as scheduled, and under the guidance of teacher sun, i learned various operations and played "cheerful music" for the break. then, i "took on this important task".
as soon as the bell rang for the end of the third period, i raised my hand to ask for leave from my math teacher wang shutang, and trotted into the radio station to play the "eye exercises". the music started, and a female voice rang out, "to protect eyesight for the revolution, eye exercises begin". at the same time, i heard the loudspeaker outside and the gossamer sound of the record in front of me. for the first time, i also saw clearly the four commands that i had never figured out. it turned out to be: "first period, massage the tianying acupoint; second period, squeeze and press the jingming acupoint; third period, massage the sibai acupoint; fourth period, press the temples and scrape the eye sockets."
after a few days, all the teachers knew my assignment and sometimes asked me to go to the radio station in advance so that i could seamlessly join the "eye exercises" when the bell rang at the end of the third period in the morning or the first period in the afternoon. sometimes the teacher forgot, so i quietly got up and slipped out the back door. before long, it was like i had my own clock in my body. often, i would turn on the equipment and put the record on the turntable, and the bell would ring.
in the first week, every morning, after putting the needle on the record of "the second national radio gymnastics for primary and secondary school students", i would walk into the physical education teaching and research room, face the playground, and do morning exercises, as if there was a command in my heart. after the second week, i stopped doing this.
this was the quietest moment of the day. the entire playground, with more than a thousand teachers and students, was in the sun, moving in unison. there was no other sound except the command of the gymnastics broadcast on the loudspeaker. the bungalow on the west side facing the sun reflected the sunlight, and the cross-shaped slogan on the wall, "the school system should be shortened, and education should be revolutionized," was brighter than at other times. i watched the uniform movements of all the teachers and students on the playground, and there was something indescribable in my heart.
i often leaned against the table and stood deep in the gym window. i noticed that the girls in our class, the propaganda team, were particularly outstanding, with more relaxed beauty in their movements. however, they all looked almost the same. sometimes i would be aware of the poplar trees above my head. although i couldn't see them, i could hear their noises and see the poplar ears and leaves falling. the poplar ears walked in a straight line; the poplar leaves followed the music, as if they were walking a winding path in the air.
the building was empty, and it was like two different times and spaces from the outside. sometimes i would walk out of the gym, climb up the first and a half floors, climb up the second floor, and walk from one end of the corridor to the other. the doors of the classrooms were open, and it seemed as if i could see the time that had just passed. a few textbooks had fallen on the chairs, and there were a few pencils on the ground, and an eraser stood up, as if it had just stopped rolling. i didn't dare to stay for long, and always walked while scanning the queue outside the window, watching them move like grids.
the most interesting thing about working at the radio station is that during the 15-minute break, you can play some records freely while watching the students playing freely outside the window. at first, i chose those i had never heard before. so for a few days, the school seemed to have changed. but soon, the singing returned to "the song of the chinese young pioneers" and "the song of the communist children's league" - the other songs were really not good. there was not much choice of records, only about ten in total. i naturally knew that "the national anthem", "the internationale", "the athletes' march", "the welcome march"... these records were not suitable for casual playback.
it was a half-worn "zhonghua" record player, ivory in color. the stainless steel turntable was covered with blue rubber. on the lower left corner was the speed knob, with 16, 0, 33⅓, 0, 45, 0, 78 engraved on the turntable, which could be turned in both forward and reverse directions. except for the 78-rpm "internationale", all the records were 33 rpm. during the off-air hours, i would sometimes turn down the volume and listen to the sound of the hairspring on the records in the room. sometimes, i would use 16 rpm to listen to them become slow, sobbing, like the sound of crying, and use 45 rpm and 78 rpm to listen to the high-pitched singing that became fast, funny, and like crazy chasing.
playing requires precision and no mistakes can be made, especially at conferences. all procedures are compared with the agenda and reviewed in mind in advance. the one i do best is "playing the internationale", which is usually the last item of the conference. the chorus version of the internationale is not at the beginning, but in the second song, and the speed of 78 rpm is very fast.
i would put the record on in advance, turn down the volume, and let the needle drop to the end of the first song. when the gossamer-like music turned into a rustling sound, i would immediately turn the turntable speed knob to "0", stop the turntable, and then adjust the volume back to normal.
when i heard principal yang qiming say, "everyone stand up and play the internationale!" i immediately turned the record player to 78. after the rustling sound, the prelude sounded perfectly, without the tail sound of the previous song or the harsh scratching sound of the needle that i had heard in the past at the meeting.
fourth grade passed like this. during the summer vacation, a large group of people in our yard got married on a sunday. aunt wang’s family invited a chef to prepare the wedding banquet and a music player, and they were busy before noon. a "zhonghua" record player, exactly the same as the one in our school, was connected to a "red lantern" radio, forming a temporary radio station in the open space in front of my house. the weather was very hot, and the music player wore white gloves and played the entire set of "liu sanjie" that had just been "liberated" in a loop. when the guests entered the yard, they would stop to look at the strangeness of this record player that they had never seen before.
as night fell, the lights inside and outside aunt wang's house were bright. electric lights were also turned on in the yard, and the banquet was set up in the open air. amid the noise of the guests, aunt wang stood up a little shyly, with two red clouds on her face. that was the first time i knew she had such a shrill little voice and could sing such a little song.
in the evening, i asked my mother, "is aunt wang from the old society?" my mother was a little surprised and didn't understand, so i asked again. my mother said, "oh, no, oh, we... all came from the old society."
soon it was time for the new semester, and i went to the radio station every day as usual to fulfill my important responsibilities. one morning, i had just taken out the microphone and connected it when teacher sun brought a girl in and said to me, "this is chen xin, a fourth-grade student. you take care of her. you are going to be promoted to middle school, and she will take over the radio station from now on."
according to teacher sun's arrangement, i worked with chen xin for another week. chen xin was from class 4, and i had never noticed her before. she had a short braid, dressed neatly, didn't talk much, and had a calmness on her face that other girls didn't have.
may 26, 2024
author: li wan
text: li wan editor: xie juan responsible editor: shu ming
please indicate the source when reprinting this article.
