I regard the radio as mankind’s most fascinating invention.

Each weekend morning in my childhood, there was a new broadcasting-play on Sichuan Province radio station. My emotions ebbed and rose with storylines which flew out of Guo Hong’s sonorous voice. At that time when the public knew few TV presenter stars and when our black-and-white TV-set often went on strike, Mr. Guo Hong became my idol. Thus I got deeply disappointed when I finally saw him on the screen—a bald, fat, middle-aged man!

My daily lunch went with a music-drama over my father’s small radio on the windowsill. Although I knew nothing of ABC, not to mention Italian, the classic melodies touched me very much. Through Chinese interpretations I learnt those world-famous names: The Swan Lake, Madama Butterfly, Lady of the Camellias, etc.. Sometimes I was enchanted to jiggle legs under the table, imagining myself in a European royal dance party.

On studying college English, I felt like a lost sheep unable to choose a right life path. I picked up BBC Learning English radio. As if finding the Pole Star rise in the dark sky before me, I sat alone by the window every sunset, devouring the extensive and fresh language knowledge, dashing down notes, and imitating the elegant British English loudly. Too often I had to shake and beat the cranky old radio in order to put it right; still, when it came to key points, the gentleman’s voice was drowned by noise. Dad had mended it himself for a hundred times before he gave up in frustration and bought me a brand-name with his cigarette money. Later on I found VOA Special English, China Radio International, and have begun to tune in to BBC News. More than once I couldn’t help but wonder how incredible it is for live sounds from all over the world to filter out of the little black box in front of me.

Year after year it was the radio that in the first place announced the tsunami of Indian Ocean, the Sichuan Earthquake, each rise of my parents’ pensions, and each rise of house prices. I always remember the beginning days of 2008 in shortage of electricity owing to the snowstorm. Every hour China Radio would broadcast Premier Wen’s comfort and encouragement to the public, esp. to the crowds stranded at railway stations or on highways. On those chilly, dark nights my family stayed together in the cubby to enjoy a radio drama—though I must have brushed aside such a conservative story on TV screen. If all TV were forbidden and TV productions were put into radios, I believe each of them could turn a nationwide hit.

Now I use a computer instead of radio for study and news, during festivals I still exclude Internet dazzles and clamours, turning on the radio as writing my homework quietly. My heart gets clarified in those old favorite songs; my mind can soar with the limpid voices of the host and the hostess. Human technology is advancing day by day: tape recorders are replaced by MP3, MP4 then MP5; mobile phones have wiped out beepers; PC beats down TV. Yet radio stays irreplaceable—like books irreplaceable by webpages, friends irreplaceable by robots.

When I was young I'd listen to the radio

Waiting for my favorite songs

When they played I'd sing along

It made me smile

So much has changed

It was songs of love that I would sing to them

And I d memorize each word

Those old melodies still sound so good to me

As they melt the years away