“It’s 6:52 in the morning. The train lurches slowly forward. Suddenly the rackety, rhythmic sound of the wheels on the track is swallowed by a mountain tunnel, as if the train is falling into the belly of an enormous whale.”

This is Lee’s narrative accompanying the rumbling of trains, the warning beeps of opening and closing doors, the rustle of train tickets being examined by an inspector. These are the sounds of Tai’an in Taichung. Lee travelled to more than 200 townships including Taixi in Yunlin County, recording the myriad of sounds that become the stories and the record of people and their land.

Lee spent a year traveling by motorbike across Taiwan to record the sounds of the island.

Local sounds

Where does one find interesting sounds? Lee says that you need to slow down and lose your impatience. That’s when surprising sounds emerge from the surroundings. The distinctive “da da da” of small farm trucks that Lee discovered pottering along the roads in Lishan represents the hardiness of the Lishan people.

Lee’s original intent in visiting Lishan was to record the unique songs of the local swallows, but unexpectedly she came across truck noises that she found more interesting. The trip, which was Lee’s first long-distance motorbike ride into the mountains, was beset with various mishaps and incidents along the way. However, she arrived safe but cold and tired at around midnight, wondering why she hadn’t stayed in her warm, cozy home. Luckily she had arranged accommodation at a friend’s home for the night.

Before dawn, Lee set off into the misty forests carrying her recording equipment to track the swallows and record their musical chirping. Birds could be spotted occasionally, and the sound of swallows gradually grew stronger as it echoed through the mountains. Crows started cawing, and dogs barked. Then Lee became aware of the mechanical clatter of the trucks that the local farmers use to reach their fields and orchards. The tiredness and hardship of her journey the previous night and all the doubts in her mind faded away as she was gripped by a sudden and conclusive realization: “This was the true sound of Lishan!”

On her many trips across the island, Lee has discovered the noises of particular environments that are unique to each area. For example, in the summer of 2012, in Yongding Village in Yunlin County’s Erlun Township, she recorded sounds that nobody had paid attention to before.

These included the door chime at the entrance to the Yongding Police Station, frogs croaking in the fields, vendors calling out to attract customers in the quiet of the night, and the air-raid warning siren which is run daily for practice. Lee recorded all these over a period of several days while she was a guest in Yongding.

While she had many plans for collecting sounds, Lee had arrived at the unfamiliar destination of Yongding on her motorbike without any idea of where she was going to stay. She found a temple but they refused to let her stay overnight. She then tried her luck at the police station, where a helpful officer suggested she try the judo hall behind the station.

Lee had imagined the sounds of the quiet village of Yongding as those of insects, frogs and the wind in the trees. But even on that first night there was so much more that was interesting: the sound of the police walkie-talkies, and the warning siren from the secure gun storage, for example. Lee recorded these quite monotonous mechanical sounds, but then manages through her narrative to infuse a degree of local warmth, making them suddenly evocative and meaningful.

Lee spent a year traveling by motorbike across Taiwan to record the sounds of the island.

Listening to herself

Lee has recorded brilliant sounds from over 200 places across the nation including Penghu, Meinong and Puli. Although the journeys were hard, she never considered giving up her original goal of becoming a “guide dog” for visually impaired people.

In 2009 when Lee was working as a sound engineer, she was doing lots of overtime almost every day. The tiredness was straining her eyes, and her vision suddenly became blurred. She saw many doctors about her eye problem, both Western and traditional Chinese, but no one was able to find the cause of her loss of sight. Lee had to stop working and fell into depression for a time. The experience of nearly going blind herself brought some understanding of the issues faced by those who are visually impaired. So she made a wish: to travel across Taiwan recording the sounds and stories of the island for visually impaired people, so that they too could enjoy the journey simply through listening to the recordings.

After a short break, Lee returned to the recording studio, but she was tiring of the pace of her work. The idea of making records for visually impaired people resurfaced in her mind, so she gave up her job and raised some money for traveling. With a pair of headphones, recording gear and some basic belongings, she set off on her motorbike.

In 2012, Lee put together a range of sounds she had recorded across the country to create a radio program. This debut work was nominated for a 2012 Golden Bell Award; she keeps the nomination prize on her desk as a daily reminder of that hard-won recognition.

Now 39 years old, Lee has always been a bit rebellious, never one to follow the rules. She had problems even at school: she had planned to study design but family finances wouldn’t allow that, so she ended up in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Chienkuo Technology University. But after a few months of study, she found she had no interest in the course, so she transferred to Visual Communication Design at Jinwen University of Science and Technology. This course was closer to her interests but she still found it difficult to apply herself. Then she moved to study in the Department of Digital Content Design at Ling Tung University.   

At Ling Tung, Lee experienced audio production for the first time and suddenly began to achieve big things in sound. For her graduation project, she worked with classmates to create a film. Lee was to look after the soundtrack, but she didn’t want to use ready-made music so instead she recorded all the sounds that eventually came together to create the piece. Surprisingly, the unique style of the soundtrack won a great deal of praise from their assessor, leading to Lee’s involvement in the world of sound.

Lee has recorded sounds from many places across the country—with the notable exception of her home district in Taichung. She hasn’t yet found the distinctive sound that characterizes that area: “Perhaps I’m too close, too familiar with my home, so I can’t find that one sound that would represent it uniquely.”

Although she hasn’t yet found “that one sound,” she did spend a year and her modest savings transforming her family’s old house in Taichung’s Fuping Street into a sound lab, a project which was unveiled late last year.

The Fuping Sound House retains its old roof tiles, and the timber bed where Lee was born has now become part of her new bedroom—with her grandmother’s chest of drawers standing in the corner.

Blending the old with the new in a space of less than 165 square meters, Lee can immerse herself in the world of sound. She’s planning to encourage more friends to experience the thrills of sound recording, to discover their own “sound” in life.

Lee points to an old Delica van parked outside which she’s planning to convert into a mobile recording studio. The plan is to take the van throughout Taiwan chronicling the amazing sounds of her island home.

Lee Pai-wen, author of The Sounds of Our Land, tunes in to the clatter of the city through her headphones. (photo by Jimmy Lin)

What’s the sound story of Lishan? Which sound best represents the salt fields of Qigu? Lee uses audio signals instead of words to reveal the stories of Taiwan. (photo by Jimmy Lin)

Lee visited more than 200 townships to discover interesting sounds, at the same time enjoying some of Taiwan’s most beautiful scenery. (photo by Jimmy Lin)

Lee visited more than 200 townships to discover interesting sounds, at the same time enjoying some of Taiwan’s most beautiful scenery. (photo by Jimmy Lin)

Listen carefully for the sea breeze carrying the scent of seaweed in Wang’an, Penghu. The sounds bring the clear blue sky and ocean to hand.