Breaking the aquatic sound barrier : hearing yourself and your enemy across the Taiwan Strait

From 1953 to 1992, speaker towers located on the headlands of Xiamen (China) and Jinmen (Taiwan) broadcast sound at high volumes across the Taiwan strait. In principle, and according to central directives, the speakers were frontline weapons in the battle between communist and “free” China. In practice, however, they piped sounds at high intensity but inconsistent clarity across the strait with mixed results. Intended audiences tuned out the broadcasts, misheard them, or heard in their voices the ghosts of long departed family members. This chapter, through interviews, archival sources, and memoirs, explores this ideological sound-clash as experienced at, and across, the border regions of Cold War China. The sonic focus reveals not only a porous ideological border, but crossings between states of audition, and finally between feelings of enmity and familial love.