Christina Jiang

Hello everyone, this is Christina Jiang.
Below are eight soundwalks I recorded while walking alone along different creeks in the San Francisco Bay Area. Through these recordings, I invite you to experience the San Francisco I see and hear — to feel how the sound of water shapes its surrounding space, reflects layers of history, and reveals the changing social and cultural landscapes along each creek.

︎Strawberry Creek, Berkeley

Strawberry Creek begins quietly in the hills east of campus, flowing gently through the university grounds where it provides a peaceful green space for students to study, relax, and gather. As it continues westward, the creek gradually disappears beneath the dense infrastructure of downtown — buried under busy traffic and concrete. Yet, in some residential backyards and small urban parks preserved by environmentalists and local residents, the creek resurfaces, revealing moments of nature hidden within the city.
This recording ends at Strawberry Creek Park, which once was the site of factories and a train station, now transformed into a local park with cafés, sports fields, and gathering spaces. Here, people of all ages coexist harmoniously: children play, adults sip coffee, teens shoot hoops, and families picnic. The creek quietly weaves through the park, gently separating these different scenes, allowing each group to enjoy this oasis of calm in their own way.

︎Codornices Creek, Berkeley

This creek winds through one of Berkeley’s more affluent neighborhoods, where the natural landscape is well preserved and includes features like small waterfalls. The walk begins among quiet streets lined with single-family homes, then leads into a lively market area filled with unique shops and a slower-paced, neighborhood feel. As the route continues, it crosses the BART tracks and enters the UC Village area, where the surroundings begin to feel less orderly. Parts of the lower creek are enclosed by fencing and barbed wire, marking a clear shift in how public space and natural features are maintained. This contrast offers a glimpse into how urban creeks reflect broader patterns of planning, care, and access across different parts of the city.

︎Bushy Dell Creek, Oakland

This journey begins in the eastern hills of Oakland, where a large park offers a variety of well-maintained facilities, including tennis courts, a Japanese garden, an artificial waterfall, and baseball fields. As I walked, I heard the steady hum of lawnmowers and the gentle ringing of wind chimes outside hillside homes. Moving downhill, the scenery gradually shifts into the denser, livelier atmosphere of downtown Oakland.
The creek eventually flows into Lake Merritt, a former wetland that has been reshaped into an artificial lake. Despite maintenance efforts, traces of pollution and litter are still present, reflecting the environmental challenges of the city. Around the lake, people gather to barbecue, relax, and enjoy their weekends, creating a vibrant and welcoming space. This soundwalk helped me see a different side of Oakland, one shaped by community life, everyday joy, and the complex layers of an evolving urban environment.

︎Pinole Creek, Pinole

This is the northernmost creek in my series, flowing through a part of the Bay Area that developed later and at a slower pace compared to other regions. The area remains one of the more affordable places for many immigrant families to purchase housing. Walking along the creek, the sounds of industry become more prominent, and the cultural atmosphere grows more diverse. This is a small city shaped in part by spillover from nearby San Pablo.
The creek eventually extends into the bay. Toward the end of the walk, I sat on a bench near the shoreline after speaking with a few local couples who shared stories and knowledge about the area's history. From that spot, I listened to the gentle sounds of the bay mingling with the low hum of a nearby wastewater treatment facility. A squirrel emerged through a gap in the wooden planks in front of me, searching curiously for food. It was a quiet, grounded moment at the edge of land and sea.

︎Wildcat Creek, Richmond

This soundwalk begins on one of the Bay Area’s well-known hiking trails, where I experimented with two different microphones for the first time: a contact microphone and a shotgun microphone. The contact mic allowed me to capture underwater sounds from the creek, while the shotgun mic highlighted the rich layers of birdsong throughout the park. It opened up a new world of recording and offered some fascinating audio textures.
Continuing westward, I crossed a busy pedestrian bridge that spans the highway. On the other side, I entered an area with casinos and shopping centers, where the atmosphere shifted noticeably. In the recordings, the presence of Latinx music becomes stronger, adding new rhythms and voices to the evolving soundscape.

︎San Lorenzo Creek, Hayward

This small city is often seen as a stopover or a place people pass through during their travels. But this soundwalk gave me a much deeper and more vivid impression of it. We arrived during cherry blossom season, when the streets were bright with color. Murals throughout the city showcased its unique character, and many old shops and alleyways still carried traces of the streetscape before redevelopment.
Asian cultural elements stood out along the walk. I had a brief and warm exchange with an elderly Japanese woman in a park that was built on the former site of the city’s old library. She was curious about my recording equipment. Farther upstream, I followed the creek to a Japanese cultural center and garden, where the presence of heritage and community was clear. This walk revealed the layered, unexpected richness of a city that often goes unnoticed.

︎Coyote Hills, Fremont

We traveled to Coyote Hills by chartered van for an unforgettable field trip. The audio begins in the wetlands below, where I witnessed geese fighting, birds singing in chorus, and wandered through dry reed fields. Then the trip began to rise into the hills.
At the top, I used a parabolic microphone and was lucky enough to capture the call of a hawk patrolling the valley below. Standing against the wind on the summit, I looked out over the distant view of the bay. The sound of wind brushing through waves of grass and blooming wildflowers at my feet created a soothing, wave-like rhythm. It became a moment of healing and quiet reflection, where sound, landscape, and stillness came together.

︎Lobos Creek, San Francisco

We began this soundwalk by getting off the 38 bus, recording along a stretch of Chinatown filled with Hong Kong-style streetscapes. The journey continued through a San Francisco nature preserve and eventually led us to where the creek meets the ocean, right beneath the iconic Golden Gate Bridge.
The audio starts in a market area centered around restaurants and fresh food vendors, capturing the rhythms of daily life. As we moved on, the environment shifted into a space shared by insects and birds, following the creek’s path as it flows toward the sea. Listening to the crashing waves while looking at the Golden Gate Bridge, The layers of the Bay Area come together with the guitar, places I had visited before, moments captured in earlier recordings, and the mix of cultures and styles we passed along the way.

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Thank you for listening, and for being part of this journey.

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sonic geographies