Hidden Tapes, Detectors, A Few Memories

In 1981, when I was in the fifth grade, I fell in love with the girl who sold magazines at the post office. She wore a mushroom-head haircut, her short locks framing her bright cheeks. In the summer, she wore a top with a little spotted-dog print, and rode a women’s bicycle with tiny wheels and no crossbar, pedaling past me neither quickly nor slowly so that I could always smell her scent for just a moment. Unfailingly, her eyes remained fixed on the road ahead of her.

Each Saturday afternoon, I would walk to the post office to buy magazines. There weren’t many that suited my age, so all I could do was choose some that seemed sophisticated, buying “Games of Intelligence,” “Mysteries of Nature,” and “Science Pictorial” until my pocket money ran out. I would stand for ages, moving back and forth before the glass counter full of magazines, while she would stand up, almost a little unwillingly and pull out magazines for people, then return to her seat and read some more calmly and unhurriedly – usually “Household Medicine” or similar titles. I could not imagine what could be good about those magazines (except, of course, for “Popular Cinema”). Sometimes she would take a break and look at the streets outside. No matter how many magazines I bought, she never seemed to take notice of me.

I scouted out the place where she lived, just two streets away from my home, in a four-story building that was starting to show tell-tale signs of wear that was said to be a dormitory for shipping workers. You got there by turning down a small alley next to the market. I had no bicycle nor did I even know how to ride one, so I imagined following behind hers, traversing the bustling streets and arriving at her doorway, then climbing the staircase and entering her own small room. She would lie on the bed and keep reading magazines. The curtains would rustle in the wind, and her small black leather bag (Little Deer brand), that usually sat in her bicycle basket, would be placed on the rattan chair by the window. There would be a mirror on her desk, and a picture of her. My eyes would move like sensors over her interior, as if seeing all, when in actuality all I could see was the politics textbook on the tiny desk in front of me, Historical Materialism and Dialectical Materialism. It occurred to me that what I needed was a hidden detector.

Speaking precisely, it would be a surveillance camera, like the one I saw one day in a science movie screened in the laboratory of my father’s school. After they played a film about the miracle of the American moon landing, there was a black-and-white spy film, showing all manner of spy tools and featuring the various activities of Western agents. One spy placed a tiny bug in a meeting room, then listened from the other side of the wall; another mounted a small camera on an office ceiling, then took pictures remotely from the next building over…I grew excited thinking that this was exactly the thing I needed. I could use the moment when she turned around to grab magazines for me, pretending to bump into her clumsily, and stick the bug onto her shirt. I would apologize, leave quickly, and then on the way home turn on the receiver (it would look like a pocket-size radio), fixing the earphones in place. Then I would know what she said, when she said it, whom she said it to, when she sold which magazines, when she ate and slept, and of course whether or not she had a boyfriend—there was no way of telling this ordinarily. Actually, I saw this surveillance machine more as a way of understanding exactly what was going on in her heart. Through her heartbeats, I would know whether she was pretending not to see me, whether she was thinking of me, or if not, if she was thinking of anyone else. I would know what was going through her mind when she rode her bike and stared straight ahead. I thought it would be best to place the bug behind her ear; there it would be hard to discover, and it would be close to her brain.

I became obsessed with this question, flipping through all of the “Science Pictorials” and “Mysteries of Nature” I could find, to the point where I was scared to see her again the next time I bought magazines. Sometimes we would run into each other on the street, and all I could do was stare at her back as she rode off, her fair, tall neck always making me think of a frightened deer.

At night, as I lay under my covers, all I would have to do is turn on my machine (at night it would magically transform into a pocket-sized television to see her lying on her bed, wearing the top with the spotted dog print, reading a magazine). This mental image drove me crazy. I buried my head in the pitch-dark recesses of my blankets, bound up in despair. I knew clearly that I would be locked forever outside one door, until everyone on the other side grew old and died. I had no way of approaching her; even if I found that bug and pasted it behind her ear, I could still only pace around the outside of her building, looking at her gently blowing curtains -- It was calm and quiet there, like nothing had happened.

1998. No one ever thought things would change so fast. I had a little money, used work as an excuse, and made some dates with some cover girls. I watched them change out of fashionable outfits before my eyes, went to places only people in the inner circle knew about, looking for more and more stimulating experiences, until I finally discovered that I was duplicating these “experiences” and grew tired. In the period that followed, my life grew more regulated, perhaps because I was nursing a hysterical model who hurt herself in the bar, but everything went crazy after she resurfaced.

One day, I unexpectedly received a tape from a friend with recordings of strangers’ conversations. The voices seemed to come from far off, containing every kind of chaotic sound from the street: the rumblings of metal safety doors being pulled down, the crazed shouts of merchants trying to clear out their stocks, the puttering of motorcycles, bicycle bells. The tape awakened something inside of me, made me peaceful and content.

In August, my emotions got better, and I arranged periodically to collect a box of recordings from an anonymous cab driver. At the beginning, my requirements were harsh: only record the conversations between passengers in the back seat, for which I was willing to pay. But he thought this would prove difficult, first because he had no way of knowing when the passengers would speak, and second because he feared they would find out they were being taped. Most importantly, he didn’t know what I was trying to do. I could not explain any more to him, but simply had to compromise. All he had to do was choose a single sixty-minute interval each day and record it continually. I felt sorry about this, as he did not seem to realize how valuable it might be to record his customers. People are willing to sacrifice bigger things in the name of protecting vague “Moral Principles.”

Below is some footage that was recorded one day. You can check my tapes if you want. These do not invade other people’s privacy, nor do they interfere in others’ lives. I just quietly pressed the record button, and let the sounds of life flow in:　Ka, PengZiziziziZazazaza, Huuuuuu, TaTa,DiDiTaTa,Hualala, Ji!Peng!Wengwengwengweng, Dengdengdengdeng, DingDingYinYinYinYin, Pa, Zi……

So, even with a surveillance machine, can one find anything more?

Guangzhou, 1999

Hu Fang, New Arcades ( Survival Club, Sensation Fair and Cool Shanshui), Map Book Publishers, 2006, Hong Kong