February 2006 ISSUE
THE KEYSER FILE
Sands Sing of Opportunity
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BY Tom Keyser
Freelance Columnist
You’re missing one of life’s true joys if you haven’t been charmed by the evocative singing sands of China. Their enchanted music, Chinese romantics have said, is the sound of heaven.
Glenn Wang, P.Eng., would not dispute the romantics’ verdict. “As
a child I lived close to these sands and they are truly magical. As an engineer
I always wondered, why do they sing, how do they sing?”
Good question. Apparently the ghostly music is created by the movement and vibration
of perfectly clean and uniform sand particles, which are normally found in remote
locales.
They’ll be far less remote, if good fortune shifts in the direction of 42-year-old Mr. Wang. He wants to recreate these timeless songs for urban dwellers the world over, and while he’s at it teach the public about soil erosion and deforestation.
Versatile and energetic, Mr. Wang is a widely travelled engineer whose entrepreneurial impulse keeps bubbling to the surface. Although based in Calgary, he spends several months a year in China, where he’s currently travelling on business.
Founder of a company known as Shine Stone International, Mr. Wang is riding
the wave of China’s growing national economy. He’s selling and
servicing an array of high-tech equipment, such as helium leak detection systems
and solvent recovery systems, as well as providing engineering services to North
American companies.
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Playing Her Song |
A Song for the Backers
At the same time, he’s drumming up interest — and serenading financial
backers — for what he calls his dream project: a series of singing sand “galleries” to
be introduced to Chinese urban audiences and then, he hopes, imported to Europe
and North America.
“Technically, we’re ready to go,” he tells me on the phone from Hohhot, the capital of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region about 600 kilometres west of Beijing.
“Currently, I’m talking to one bank in Beijing. I’m also talking
to two private groups of Chinese investors and another group from the U.S.”
In tandem with a partner, a professor named Ma Yuming, Mr. Wang has formed a
company called Huayu Singing Sand Technologies Ltd. He calls it the first — and
so far only — corporation in the world specializing in singing sand technology
and application. Mr. Ma and Mr. Wang developed the process for replicating the
sands in a controlled interior setting, and so far the process is patented in
China.
“This is the most enjoyable project I’ve ever worked on,” Mr.
Wang enthuses.
The singing sands have always been part of his life. He grew up on the edge of
China’s Maowusu Desert, near two of the world’s most famous singing
sand dunes. He says they provided compensation for the occasional sandstorms
and water shortages endured by the residents of his hometown, Erdos.
After earning his degree in mechanical engineering from Beijing’s distinguished
Tsinghua University in 1985, Mr. Wang spent a few years teaching in China before
pursuing graduate studies in Canada.
Since then he has gained more than 10 years of technical and management practical
experience in Canada and the United States in an interesting array of fields,
including water treatment and manufacturing. It’s been a very successful
career thus far, he says.
But apart from his engineering skills, the outgoing and personable Mr. Wang seems born for sales and promotion. He has big plans for his singing sands galleries.
Welcome to His Gallery
“The first thing patrons will see when they enter will be a large sand
dune,” he explains. “You’ll climb up to the top and either
walk or slide down, as the sand makes its singing sounds.”
Visitors will be encouraged to run their fingers through the sands, to relax, to meditate and to get in tune with nature’s wonders.
Mr. Wang plans an educational component as well. He hopes to use his galleries as a tool to alert the public to the increasingly serious problem of desertification, particularly in China, where chronic soil erosion and deforestation pose serious environmental threats.
“We’ll also include a sand museum, where patrons can observe the sand crystals under the microscope. They are very colourful and very beautiful.”
Other proposed features: a Mongolian performance hall and a herdsman specialty food restaurant, in celebration of desert and grassland cultures.
Small wonder Mr. Wang goes about his business with a song in his heart.