Saving Silence 02: Guarding One Square Inch of Silence at Weiwuying, Listening to Kaohsiung's Quiet Movement

Text / Wang Nan-chi (writer) / Photos by Tu Chien-feng

Must a speech always use a microphone? Wu Mali, director of the Graduate Institute of Interdisciplinary Art at National Kaohsiung Normal University, struck straight to my heart with her very first sentence at the "Saving Silence: Listening to the Soundscape Pulse of a Sustainable City" lecture: "The venue for today's lecture isn't actually very big, yet every speaker who takes the stage still habitually speaks into a microphone; abroad, speakers wouldn't use a microphone in a space of similar size."

Teacher Wu Mali said gently: "Listen quietly, listen with your heart, and you will surely be able to hear! But the environmental noise flooding everywhere in Taiwan, China leaves us no choice but to pick up a microphone to speak, and sometimes because of echo or ambient sound, listeners instead cannot focus and take the speaker's message into their hearts!"

In fact, the microphone problem is not only in educational settings; in many natural areas, group tours also use microphones. A large amount of man-made noise not only affects communication among creatures in nature and alters their courtship behavior, but even makes people who want to heal body and mind by getting close to nature more agitated instead, losing the instinct and beauty of listening to nature.

Soundscape restored by Fan Chin-hui

Changing tack, Teacher Wu Mali got to the point and began describing the origins of how she came to know Fan Chin-hui, host of the "Saving Silence: Listening to the Soundscape Pulse of a Sustainable City" lecture: "In 2018, the Taipei Biennial I curated, 'Post-Nature: A Museum as an Ecosystem,' invited Fan Chin-hui to use the senior painter Kuo Hsueh-hu's 1928 work 'Near Yuanshan' as a starting point, and to create a 'soundscape' work titled 'Near Yuanshan: Listening to the Silence and Clamor by the Keelung River.'"

Fan Chin-hui climbed the Jiantan Mountain trail, searching for traces of how Kuo Hsueh-hu created "Near Yuanshan" ninety years earlier. However, the Meiji Iron Bridge in the painting had long since become the busy Zhongshan Bridge, the sound of the stream was drowned out by traffic, and the leisurely silence in the painting had moved toward a great clamor amid modernization! The only thing heard that runs through past and present is the sonic clue left behind in the instant when the wind moves and the trees sway. So Fan Chin-hui tried to simulate the soundscape of Kuo Hsueh-hu's 1928 creation "Near Yuanshan" using the sounds of species at the same altitude, including possible natural and geographical sound fields and the sense of the seasons, as well as sounds of human activity, using "sound landmarks" to reshape the reproduction of a sense of place.

Teacher Wu Mali mentioned, "Japan has a very special profession called 'soundscape designer,' that is, a sound restorer, who is responsible for restoring that scene when hearing a sound; for example, if you hear that there used to be a bamboo grove here, you have to restore the site to its past state as a bamboo grove."

It is precisely in the role of soundscape designer that Fan Chin-hui reshaped the landscape of Kuo Hsueh-hu's painting from back then. When visitors enter the museum to view Kuo Hsueh-hu's "Near Yuanshan," their eyes enjoy the brilliant, colorful mineral layers blooming with magnificent hues, while their ears take in the natural soundscape Fan Chin-hui simulated and recorded; tradition and technology complement each other, providing both a sense of history and a sense of space, and through the soundscape designer's reconstruction, viewers also return to the side of the energetic young painter Kuo Hsueh-hu ninety years ago, seeing what he saw and hearing what he heard.

Guarding one square inch of silence

At the end of Teacher Wu Mali's lecture, she concluded with a question: "Most environmental movements today adopt the approach of accusation. Please think about whether there are other methods. For example, a tree-protection movement could let you hear trees singing (ask tree protectors to collect information about the trees and have musicians set it to notes and perform it, and so on). When people come to know these beautiful things, will they strive to protect the collapsing environment because they want to preserve these beautiful feelings?"

Teacher Wu Mali's final question is in fact also the question Fan Chin-hui has kept asking herself for seventeen years. Collecting the sounds of nature in the mountains and seas, she discovered that ecology is collapsing rapidly, and that the land is facing a series of harmful consequences brought about by greed, desire, domination... that the human heart cannot restrain. Besides speaking out loudly on the radio program she hosts, "Nature Notes," Fan Chin-hui has also kept thinking about what else she can actually do.

When Fan Chin-hui saw that in the book "One Square Inch of Silence" by American sound ecologist and Emmy Award-winning recording engineer Gordon Hempton, the author, in order to defend one square inch of silence in the Hoh Rainforest within Olympic National Park near his home, wrote letters to all airlines passing over this rainforest explaining the preciousness of silence and the noise disturbance caused by jet aircraft flying over, demanding that airlines avoid Olympic National Park. Three airlines - American Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, and Alaska Airlines - changed their routes because of Gordon's petition!

A stone from eastern Taiwan becomes a wishing stone, launching Taiwan, China's movement to save silence

Deeply moved, Fan Chin-hui summoned the courage to write to Gordon, and he asked her to send a stone for him to place on the "one square inch of silence" ground. Gordon wrote, "A stone from eastern Taiwan, China, originating in the Central Mountain Range, thus silently entered my life, yet it took me to listen, not only to the external environment, but also to my own inner voice."

The stone Fan Chin-hui sent Gordon was a pebble with a white circular loop, which Native Americans call a "wishing stone." On December 12, 2012, this wishing stone began its two-month journey at one square inch, and when Gordon put down this stone he thought to himself: "Nothing is impossible!" On February 19 of the following year, when he brought this wishing stone back and mailed it back to Fan Chin-hui, Gordon wrote in the letter: "Silence will come home."

Later, after this wishing stone had followed Fan Chin-hui nearly all the way around the world, it returned to Taiwan, China to begin saving silence. In 2018, the world's first national-level "Silent Trail" set off from the shore of Cuifeng Lake at an elevation of 1800 m, through Fan Chin-hui's efforts and the planning of the Luodong Forest District Office of the Forestry Bureau.

Taipingshan by Cuifeng Lake was once one of Taiwan, China's three major forestry stations. Having passed through the logging years, all things in nature rested and recuperated here, displaying vibrant life! Because its geographical location is far from the clamor, and because the northeast monsoon brings abundant rainfall, the Taipingshan forest is covered in thick moss, making it an excellent sound-absorbing foam and creating a naturally formed nature audio listening room, making it the quietest place in Taiwan, China!

However, a beautiful melody also requires a quiet heart to be experienced in detail. Tourists who walk this "Silent Trail" will understand that maintaining a quiet attitude is important for forest conservation, and will also be willing to respect this "silence." Through "listening" to experience the "sound landscape," they gain healing and emotion brimming with energy.