Memory of The House of 72 Tenants: The Soundcapes of Daily Life in Shanghai City

The House of 72 Tenants is a comedy performed by artists of the Shanghai People’s Farce Troupe in the 1950s, depicting the challenging lives of grassroots residents. Set against the backdrop of spring 1949, this drama concentrated on the destinies of diverse characters from various backgrounds, showing their diverse loves, hates, and life temperaments. In the drama, the cramped living space of 72 tenants serves as a typical representation of urban life in Old Shanghai. What sounds emerge in the daily lives of residents in such a confined space? How are those sounds expressed? How do they interact with the actions of the residents and evoke fundamental human emotions, including private secrets, harassment, interpersonal conflict, loneliness, mutual aid, and the vibrant noise of everyday life? In 2013, I organized a project named Sounding China: Audio-visual Eco-musicological Ethnography, which included a subgroup focused on the soundscapes of Shanghai, encompassing living space, public space, and artistic space. This research on acoustic ecology extended the study of human sound culture beyond musical boundaries, exploring the relationship between living organisms and their surroundings. The study particularly emphasizes the listening experiences and memories associated with houses and homes through the study of soundscapes in living spaces. After presenting this paper at the 2014 CHIME conference, I revisited and completed this article in 2022 during the COVID-19 period.