I have always been an avid Simon and Garfunkel fan. Back in 1986, when I was studying at Fudan University in Shanghai, I actually believed that “The Sound of Silence” was the national anthem of the U.S., given the frequency it was played.
However, my favorite song of theirs will always be “The Boxer.” It tells the story of a poor kid trying to scrape by in New York. Battered by the cruel winter, he dreams of leaving the city and returning home. In the final verse, the boy draws strength from the sight of an aged boxer, who has battled on for all of his life despite the unending blows to his body.
In the winter of 1986, my friends and I would cram ourselves into a campus bar called “The Saloon,” where we’d smoke cheap cigarettes and discuss Freud and Sartre. Back then I couldn’t tell you if Sartre was French or Japanese — I was there for one reason only. I was in love with the waitress. Every day I would brave the haze of cigarette smoke, endure heated political debates, and drink the bitter coffee, all in the hopes that the waitress would look over at me. She never did.
Those evenings are forever framed in my mind among the voices of Simon and Garfunkel, which were played on repeat by the bar throughout the night. One time, inspired by the lyrics of “The Boxer,” I told the waitress, “Life is a boxing match.”
“I think you’d better build up your arms before entering the ring,” she offered in response, before taking my money for coffee.
After graduation in 1990, I decided to stay in Shanghai and get into media. With “The Boxer” as my soundtrack, I embarked on my career. But despite being equipped with an impressive arsenal of jabs, crosses, hooks, and uppercuts, I lost more than I won.
Still, although I was weak, I never gave up. For 20 years I persisted, swiftly dodging blows using the butterfly steps I’d learned from watching Muhammad Ali, the “King of the Ring.” There was forever only one thought on my mind: You will not KO me.
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I was right. I was knocked down, but never out. By the time 2014 came around, it seemed the referee had counted to nine and was ready to call time on what was rapidly becoming a stagnant media industry. When we — a bunch of print media veterans looking to make a change — launched The Paper, Sixth Tone’s Chinese sister publication, it felt as if we had climbed to our feet, a little dazed but still standing, and said, “We’re OK, we can go on. We still have a voice.”
In 2015, when we began discussions of launching an English-language platform, we were consumed by questions. What would we say? What kind of content would interest a global audience? What would resonate with them?
The answer we came up with was that we would tell everyday stories. We would tell the stories of our lives and experiences, and of the struggles and successes that face every Chinese person.
Six months later and the world now has Sixth Tone. It is a fresh, new voice, like an additional tone on top of the five already present in Mandarin Chinese. My hope is that Sixth Tone’s uniqueness will make it stand out amidst a chorus of voices already reporting on China.
One of my favorite stories is “A Piece of Steak,” written in 1909 by Jack London.
On the morning of a fight with a much younger opponent, aging boxer Tom King sets out, carrying only experience, wisdom, and passion. He is defeated in the match because he is lacking the energy of the youth he is fighting. Tom King leaves the ring, crushed, with no money in his pocket, unable to afford even a piece of steak, the nourishment from which he believes would have helped him to win.
It may well be the children of the digital age who end up with the championship belt as old media lies down and out at their feet. But Tom King’s character and the timelessness of his tale remind us that it is the stories of struggles and successes that are carried over from generation to generation. Voices change, but ideas live forever.
(Header image: Duane Rieder/The Image Bank/VCG)
