As the Beijing Sounds (BJS) studios approach the one year birthday in October 2008, you might not be wondering about the various characters known to congregate here. You might not have any interest in what they do outside the studios or how they relate to each other. Don’t worry, you wouldn’t be the only one. No one, in fact, has ever asked for this synopsis. Nevertheless, here it is: roughly in order of frequency of appearance and in reverse order of importance to the enterprise’s operations.
SYZ
Founder and editor syz takes all responsibility for the paranoia that inspires the BJS pseudonyms. But don’t let that throw you off. Send an e-mail (bjshengr -at- gmail -dot- com) if you really, really just have to find out his real name for the mash letter you are sending with cash enclosed.
Aside from the full-time responsibility of Beijing Sounds, syz also finds time to manage a market/new product research operation at a company hereinafter known as Gargantuan Information Services Corporation (GISC). At a high level it’s a job that seems like a natural fit for him: math undergrad, market research and technology marketing experience, MBA… Duh, of course he’s in corporate marketing.
But then you could argue that Beijing Sounds was a natural fit as well: interest in languages and an obsession with sound, teaching stints in Latvia then Korea, Masters in an “English language/linguistics” program, marriage to a Beijing native… Duh, Beijing Sounds.
The just-so stories never really are just so. I won’t bore you with the circuitous path that brought me to GISC. Suffice it to say it’s only the second job in my life I’ve really enjoyed (which probably says more about a lugubrious personality than about any of the previous jobs). And for that reason I wouldn’t at all mind putting GISC’s name here either, along with the usual disclaimer that these opinions have nothing to do with the company — except that I’m not sure everyone would appreciate the occasional reference to less-than-model corporate behavior.
The job-blog connection is that the former set the stage for the latter. If GISC hadn’t sent me to Beijing for a good chunk of 2007-08 to work with a newly acquired business, and if I hadn’t found myself walking through the streets of 朝阳区 (Chāoyángqū = Chaoyang District) with a cell phone that happened to have a record function, Beijing Sounds probably would not have happened.
But if you want to go back to the pre-history…
Princess Beijing Sounds / PBS
An unexplained sequence of events in 2001 led to the birth of a girl who, as much as she might want to deny it someday as she reads this blog, shares some of syz’s genetic material. Now in 2008 entering the first grade in a 上地 (Shàngdì = area of Beijing) school, PBS still (as of this writing) occasionally deigns to grace the Beijing Sounds studios with the tongue-twisting sounds of her Beijing argot, especially if the situation allows her to sneak in some potty humor, and double-especially if the recording pits her against her cousin (an eight-year-old Beijinger) in a contest for vocal volume.
If GISC was a catalyst that helped get Beijing Sounds bubbling, PBS is one of the necessary chemicals in the cocktail. All of my ability to wax poetic about poop, skin rashes and behavioral problems has been acquired through extensive observation of her and…
Lǎolao (姥姥) aka Yuèmǔ (岳母) University
“Grandma,” as we call her in English, doesn’t need a lot of introduction because she got her own already. To quote myself shamelessly,
…the introduction is daunting. After all, how would you begin to introduce an entire educational system, an institution, a repository of historical knowledge — all rolled up in the angst-ridden and psychologically conflicted package we call a human being?
It was YU’s arrival for the birth of PBS in 2001 that formally launched the pre-Beijing Sounds Mandarin study program. Up until that point, despite the aforementioned linguisticky background, syz had done an admirable job of remaining shockingly ignorant about all things Chinese, to the extent of dropping out of no fewer than two community college classes. That all changed. As Gnostics of the faith understand, there is no dropping out of YU.
It’s hard to exaggerate the importance of YU in syz’s acquisition of Beijing-tinged Zhonglish. Her accent, acquired from (at least) two generations of Beijingers before her, has little of the standardized pǔtōnghuà flavor of the younger and more mobile generation. Her five-year residence at the BJS studios has blended communicative necessity with the necessary amount of emotional distance that you would not be able to get from a spouse. As this blog has argued before, the spousal unit is one of the last places you want to start when learning a foreign language.
Mrs. Beijing Sounds
That’s not to say the spousal unit has not been influential at Beijing Sounds. As any writer will tell you, even a blogger who posts as infrequently as I do, the success of the activity requires, if not outright support, at least benign resignation on the part of the spouse. Antipathy, even if it is kept in check by a desire to accommodate, will inevitably make its way to the surface on one of those Saturday mornings when a critical eye sees household chores undone, last year’s tax return incomplete, the child unfed — “and you’ve been out here blogging since 5 AM?!” [Yes, the scenario would be plausible were Mrs. BJS tipped towards the side of antipathy; syz is an insanely early riser and, no, it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with morality or discipline since he is clearly lacking in both -- it's genetics, pure and simple.]
Despite the astounding commercial success of Beijing Sounds, I think it’s still fair to argue that Mrs. Beijing Sounds resigned herself to its existence not for the financial benefits but because she truly saw the pleasure it brought to the owner. Moreover, it would be unfair to characterize her role as mere resignation. While cameos are rare (this is her in a re-creation of a restaurant incident), she is often behind the scenes providing reality-check consulting and a skeptical eye for some of syz’s edgier theories.
When she’s not proofing the hànzì [Chinese characters] in transcripts, Mrs. BJS floats between the US and Beijing, running the medical device company she founded.
Friends of BJS
Or Friends of BS, as they may know themselves, bear heavy responsibility for many of the ideas that have kept it running. This is something I wouldn’t have anticipated. After all, when you start a blog you often think it’s just for yourself — you just want to get some clarity around some otherwise haphazard thoughts.
And most of the time it really is just for yourself, or possibly for your mom, if you keep it PG rated and tell her where it is and send her e-mail updates. But that’s not quite inspiring (you could just send her an e-mail now and again, you neglectful ass).
It is inspiring, though, when people who know a lot more than you about the subject at hand write in to expand on something, or to correct this or that, or to wonder about this or that, or just to comment that they’ve been thinking the same esoteric thought. The blog has turned out to be an unexpected source of friendships, acquaintances, pen-pals, etc. Although I’m embarrassingly slow about responding to comments, I’ve made a mid-year’s resolution to improve.
So thanks for the comments, questions and suggestions. Again, you can always reach the studios by e-mail (bjshengr -at- gmail -dot- com) in the event that your comment is getting eaten by the spam filter, you have an off-topic question, or you just need my bank account information to handle a transaction for that Nigerian prince (10% for me is fine — anything more would be usury).
[Note: this is cross-listed with the About page cuz I can't figure out how to get comments working over there. Please feel free to comment here.]
Add "Learn Chinese" to iGoogle
Post a Comment