[One Thousand Characters a Day] Such an Intellectual Stroll＜4＞- Symphony on Concrete

Editor's NoteThis book offers food for thought from our familiar daily lives. The path taken with a baby was filled with curiosity and joy, the crowds seen through a doctor's eyes were all potential patients, and walking with a visually impaired person opened the senses. A walk with a sound engineer was like a symphony, and the typographer's perspective discovered refined aesthetics in commonplace signboards. Strangers met on the street advance along their own routes, even without sight they find the location of shade by sound alone, a simple change in posture reveals the humility of passersby, and a universe of a miniature world unfolds on the underside of leaves. There is another world within the world, and within that, yet another world unfolds. We call this 'observation.' Word count: 1023 characters.

At the intersection where we stood, typical urban environmental sounds could be heard. The sounds of trucks and buses, people handing out flyers on the street and raising their voices, the clicking of high heels, and cellphone ringtones were all audible. Several people have attempted to compile a list of all urban noises. Creating a classification system for the bright and dark, simple and complex, short and long sounds that reach our ears seems like an impossible task. We lack the concentration to listen to every sound, and even if we do hear them, we lack the vocabulary to express them. Don’t we often miss even the sounds of our own bodies operating?the pounding of the heart and the creaking of joints? To hear the sounds inside the body, one must go to an anechoic chamber. In that strange room, all external sounds subside, allowing one to hear the sound of blood circulating inside the body, the overlapping clanking of heartbeats, and the stretching of lung muscles with each breath.

Urban dwellers have involuntarily become experts in city noise. I know that the sounds of shuttle buses and city buses differ, and if someone parks across the street where I usually park, I can sense it auditorily. From the voices around me, I can tell whether I am on Broadway or one block away on Amsterdam Avenue. Someone who regularly walks in the forest might be able to distinguish tree species by their characteristic sounds. Fir trees moan and groan, holly whistles, ash trees make a "shh" sound, and beech trees rustle. My ears are dulled in the forest but perform well in the city. As another example, rural people count the number of times crickets chirp within a given time to determine the outside temperature. In contrast, as a city dweller, I can tell within seconds of waking up from the sounds on the street whether it is a weekday or weekend. If I hear the garbage truck groaning "kkuik," it is a weekday. If the sound of cars from the distant highway has diminished, it is the weekend.

－Alexandra Horowitz, How to Be an Explorer of the World, translated by Park Dasom, Lion Books, 18,800 KRW

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