ACOUSTIC METADATA

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• TIMESTAMP: Autumn, 1984

• LOCATION: China Youth Daily / Huaxi, Guizhou Mountains

• ACOUSTIC TARGET: "Domingo-like" vocal quality / Dry, low-voltage rasp of poverty

• OLFACTORY/TACTILE SENSOR: Oily black grime, Cysticercus (Bean Pork)

 

 

Sister Rong had tried to mold me into a star, sending me to vocal coaches. They marveled at my "Domingo-like" quality and a unique low-frequency tremor. But I despised the performance. I wasn't a singer; I was a recorder of the raw and the unrefined. Rong, perhaps out of pity, sent me to the mountains of Guizhou to write "propaganda-friendly" stories.

 

After days of travel, I arrived at a destitute village in Huaxi. The village secretary, Xiao Huang, spoke with the dry, low-voltage rasp of a body deprived of fat. 

 

"Reporter Bai," he asked timidly, his skeleton clicking as he moved, "can you stay the night?”

 

I knew these people lived too harshly to even bother with lies. His "house" was a wind-swept shack. We talked for twenty-two hours. My fingers cramped as I filled two notebooks. Finally, I asked: "What is the happiest thing for the young people here every month?”

 

He kicked at a rat, his yawn devoid of energy. "Happiness? Eating a bowl of Douzhurou (Cystic Pork) at the market down the mountain.”

 

My aunt, a professor of parasitology, once told me that pork infected with Cysticercus—parasitic larvae—is a lethal toxin. They burrow into the brain, causing dementia, epilepsy, and madness. In the local dialect, it’s called "Bean Pork.”

 

I went to the market.