User:)biyibiyibiyi(/grad project/wangzhen

Departure

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.

Highlights of our talk

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.

Wang as a orienting figure

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.

Annet's comments

My thoughts from above, on referring to Wang as a orientational figure was a thought from a tutorial with Annet. Upon asking me to explain what the jargon "anarchive" means to me, I could not give an answer. I thought upon it for another moment and thought of "intimacy". Now several weeks after the tutorial the this thought still holds.

TBA: TO BE ADDED

A brief clip of audio from the interview? I have a transcription:

You go ahead and ask but I probably won't be able to remember a lot of things...Or I can ask other people for you.

I don't remember what my repeater looked like.

(showing pictures to Wang Zhen of the repeater cut-outs)

Oh did we buy that for learning English as I remember?

I used it to listen to things like New Concept English stuff like that.

Oh...Is it? (giggling) I really can't remember anything...

Oh it looks like that, like you can put cassette tape in there, and listen to radio?

No you can't listen to radio with that.

Oh you can't? (giggling)

But the ones we had were not so cute. (pointing to the ones with cute cartoon figures on them)

It was recommended by the teachers for us to buy...And how much were the repeaters then? Did they cost more than 100 RMB?

No it cost around 400 RMB!

But 400 RMB during that time was a lot! Probably equal to around 1000 RMB now. Was it really so expensive?

Well it's used mostly for listening to The New Concept English...Of course we use it to do school work (dictation homework assigned by the teacher), but it was used much more to learn the NCE don't you think?

Well the teachers in school didn't really recommend the NCE to us. Like your parents they studied English, and my aunt also studied English, so they knew NCE existed.

It's usually during summer and winter holidays...During school days we didn't have the energy, but during holidays it's one lesson per day and they (parents) will “grab” you do recite the lessons.

I think around fifth grade I started to learn English... But also the entire grade in school was divided into two sections, class 1 and 2 started earlier, while 3 and 4 started later. I was in class 4 so I started later, but also I transferred (from another province).

Did you remember the “English Experimental Class”? Yes I did remember those, our school had those as well (we were assigned to enroll in different primary schools). Didn't you think at the time English was not so popularized at the time, but since our generation English started to become more and more popularized. But I don't think I learned the NCF until fifth or sixth grade, it was pretty late. I learned the second volume for sure, not sure about the fifth, but definitely not the fourth. The fourth was too difficult.

Did you remember the voice in the tape recordings? I had no idea if the person doing the voice recording is already dead... (As I said this I thought of a demo picture in the Suzuki Violin tutorial showing a girl's posture holding a violin. My then sixty year old teacher told me, “She was already there when I was little.”)

Roommate

New edition

So kids these days are still learning the NCE.

Well not like that many people have asked but quite a few...Dong Lei's daughter who was born in 2003 also asked for it...But I didn't have those text books anymore.

Did you remember Zhang Qianlong?

No.....Oh I remember it was the physic teacher! Actually I wrote about him in an essay recently. Right how was he? The physics classes I had with him were disastrous. In the beginning my examines were around 60... The next year we had Liang Lixiang as the teacher and I was doing fine. Well not that I was so great with physics but I wasn't struggling anymore.

Right it was that Zhang Qianlong...He used to live downstairs of our house and his son came to me to borrow textbooks. His son is a bit chubby.

Did you see him anymore?

No it was at the old house, since we moved away I didn't see him anymore. But I think their family still lives there.

Well what I am the most curious about is that, if the the New Concept English is so great, why didn't school teachers recommend NCE to us directly. We knew that it was great, but it was never recommended to us...

Well I have a conspiracy theory... Do you have a theory that's more on the brighter side of the spectrum?

No I doubt that... IELTS and TOEFL going abroad Obama speech. English and Chinese departments Staff's children enrolled more in humanities section.

During the summer holiday and Lunar New Year Holiday, one lesson everyday and report back to him.

But if your dad's English is not very good then you can just make it up(talk gibberish) to him?!

Well but he is still a Chinese teacher, you can still tell(from the rhythm of words, etc).