Older Beijing 评书 radio broadcasts

[urionje]

I've been on a bit of a nostalgia trip recently and have been looking for older broadcasts of Beijing radio from when I was living there 2006-2008.

The voice of 单田芳 really brings me back (I've been imitating him for.. almost 15 years now) and there are plenty of recordings of him around, but I'd also love to hear the old commercials I was familiar with and just have that immersive experience.

 

Any leads or ideas?

[roddy]

What a fantastic question. You can listen to 北京交通广播 （taxi-driver radio) online, and as far as I can tell it hasn't changed since I was in town around the same years. The old commercials - that's pretty obscure, but I won't rule out someone turning up an archive of old recordings. 

[edelweis]

I used to find (relatively recent) replays from http://www.rbc.cn but the page seems down right now ?

[abcdefg]

These broadcasts help define China in my memories from the early days. I also enjoyed the radio dramas. The reader played several parts just by changing his or her voice. Often heard them in blind massage shops. TV was not of much use to the staff.  

[Jim]

There's plenty of pingshu on Ximalaya if you can get that app, I often have it going while I work, but it won't have the commercials, or not that I've come across. You get their own ads between episodes is all I've heard.

[urionje]

9 hours ago, roddy said:

The old commercials - that's pretty obscure, but I won't rule out someone turning up an archive of old recordings. 

That's what I was hoping for, I am very experienced in finding things on the English language internet, but I've been out of the China game so long that my cultural references are still along the lines of 同一个世界同一个梦想。

 

In case anyone else is interested, I did come up with this collection of 评书, including the buzzy, tinny quality that we all remember fondly from taxi rides in a Volkswagen Santana.

 

I hope someone out there recognizes my snippets of memory from my two favorite commercials:

• 集美家具！集美！集美家具！集美！
• No idea what the ad was for but the number was very excitedly announced: Liu liu ling yao, baaaa jiu jiu jiu. Liu liu ling yao, baaaaa jiu jiu jiu.

"Welcome to take Beijing Taxi, your advice on our services is appreci-ated."

 

Please reminisce with me! I'm so excited I came across this forum, someone get Peter Hessler in here

[roddy]

Welcome to the site! See if this sends shivers down your spine like it does mine....

taxi.mp3

[urionje]

Ohhhh roddy my mouth sprang open when it started then I made some noise of sudden primal recognition when the voice came on, this was exhilarating
 

Where did you find this? It’s such a weirdly  important and special artifact for people like us

[urionje]

9 hours ago, edelweis said:

http://www.rbc.cn but the page seems down right now ?

Yeah I was initially excited to see that come up in my search, I'm curious when it was disconnected--it has a pretty consistent presence when using all the global internet radio.. tuners? I could find, which wouldn't be the case if it had been dead for a long time.

[mungouk]

6 hours ago, urionje said:

评书,

 

Ah, so that's a thing?  

 

I was always curious about the times I heard Didi drivers listening to something like that while I was in Beijing. 

 

Potentially good listening practice, with the speech being slow and clear...?  Or would there be any pitfalls?

[urionje]

13 minutes ago, mungouk said:

Potentially good listening practice, with the speech being slow and clear...?  Or would there be any pitfalls?

So I’ve never tried to approach it as practice, I’ve always just kind of relegated it to the realm of traditional arts—not a term I’m satisfied with—which is all sorts of things like speeches and stories that I consume and I love for the nostalgic familiarity of the rhythm. An occasional snippet catches my attention because it’s something I recognize or I get that it’s a clever wording or something. 
I think there’s something to be said for just passively consuming media in whatever your target language is, it just builds up that part of your brain that recognizes patterns which is a great muscle to exercise in language learning. 
 

 

[abcdefg]

Those are fantastic! Just finished listening to this one while I did some mindless tasks around the house. 

 

https://www.pingshu8.com/play_829.html 

[mungouk]

I just stumbled across some 评书 on the China National Radio website: http://www.radio.cn/pc-portal/erji/classification.html?classifyId=213

 

There's also 相声 + some other categories listed in the index: http://www.radio.cn/pc-portal/home/index.html

 

Plus links to listen live to CNR stations (browse the list of logos, or select by subject or region): http://www.radio.cn/pc-portal/erji/radioStation.html

[urionje]

Oh this is great stuff. I've gone through a number of internet radio sites and apps but they're mostly a lot more unreliable than these, thank you.