In memory of Mr. T'ung Ping-cheng 佟秉正 (London)

I have just heard this week about the demise of Mr. T’ung Ping-cheng 佟秉正.  

This blog is in his memory.

Mr. T’ung was my tutor at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) and, later, my first speaker for the Speech Recognition and Speech Synthesis project.  It was one of two Chinese computer research projects at SOAS that I was working on in the second half of the 1980s.  We used his voice for the recordings for analysis and, ultimately, recognition and synthesis.  

The distance from the mouth to the microphone had to be a consistent distance, for the sound quality.  To this end, I managed to procure a dentist’s chair from the School of Dentistry near UCL (University College London), and pushed it all the way from there to SOAS, with the help of a tiny porter, Mauritian Indian Steve.  The dentist’s chair has a head rest, which would ensure that the head would be fixed and not tilt back during the recording.  

Each time, I’d set up the microphone, and measure the distance.  The first time I did this, I explained to Mr. T’ung why we had to do it.

He said, “How can it be a consistent distance?  If I say 猪 zhū [a rounded, pursed-lip sound], my mouth will be 1cm closer to the microphone.  If I say 西 xī [a peeled-back-lip sound], my mouth will be 0.5cm further back.”

Rest in peace, dear Mr. T’ung.  You will live forever in our collective memory.  We will miss you and your sense of humour very much.

(London, 1985 and 2020)