User:)biyibiyibiyi(/grad project/wangzhen

Wang Zhen was a figure that orients this departure: she was the daughter of my parents' colleague, we are the same age and the same school year. The narrative/retrospection is situated in the compound we lived in for two years, from 8 to 10 years old. At age 9, English courses become mandatory in school. I bought Wang Zhen's first repeater with her, in the local shopping mall.

The conversation revealed how Wang Zhen's forgetful nature. She did not remember what the repeater was, mistaking it as a radio device. As the memories become more familiar to her, they became more vivid. We talked about the circulation of New Concept English, a English as second language text book widely popular in China since its publication in the 60s.

The conversation also revealed the correlation between foreign language learning and class. Because our parents were teachers, we were instructed to learn during our spare time, while many other households did not emphasize foreign language as a way of advancement, academically and socially and culturally.

I want to use Wang Zhen's as an orienting figure for the archive. The repeater was a collective experience of a generation, and I want to depart from a shared experience that's intimate to me, and unravel the rich contexts that illustrate the repeater's context. From the compound we lived in, the schools we went to, how we were told to buy the device per teacher's instruction... These details weave together a narrative that probe to the common experiences the repeater triggered in people's daily lives.