Those foreign teachers weren’t wary of Brian Carter at all. Since he could appear in the foreign teachers’ dormitory area, it probably meant his parents were also foreign teachers. So, they didn’t drive Brian Carter away; even when he got very close, they didn’t reject him. On the contrary, they warmly invited him to join in their games. With his thick skin freshly put on, Brian Carter finally found his group. If his English wasn’t good enough, he just added some Chinese—some of these foreign teachers were quite talented with languages or had been in China for a long time. Through a mix of talking and gesturing, Brian Carter finally figured out what each of these things was called and roughly what they were for.

Additionally, he found a few circuit diagrams in their packaging boxes. After getting their permission, he borrowed them for research. By all rights, such complex circuit diagrams should have had many parts he couldn’t understand, but that wasn’t a problem—there was an electronic engineering department at the university, and Brian Carter knew the teachers there. Language may have national or ethnic boundaries, but circuit diagrams are an international language. As long as someone works in this field, whether you give them an American circuit diagram or a Soviet one, it’s all pretty much the same to them—no essential difference.

After two weeks of tireless effort, Brian Carter finally understood the basic principles behind these electronic devices. The foreign teachers told him how to use them, while the teachers in the electronic engineering department explained how they worked. Combining both sides, Brian Carter immediately became half an expert in audio equipment. He couldn’t claim to be better than the pros, but at least he knew how to connect and use these things properly.

Unfortunately, his path of exploration ended there. The foreign teachers definitely wouldn’t lend him the equipment to play with, and they didn’t use it every day either. Even if Brian Carter hung around the foreign teachers’ building whenever he was free, he only happened to catch them using the equipment once—not nearly enough to satisfy him.

But he had to put up with it. At that time in China, aside from professional art troupes like the Film Academy or the Music Academy, there simply weren’t any jobs like sound engineers. Even if there were, Brian Carter wouldn’t know where to find one. Such equipment wasn’t available for sale in society, so even if you wanted to learn or get hands-on experience, there was nowhere to go.

Chapter 0003: I Am a Sound Engineer!

But Brian Carter’s scheming heart never changed; he kept thinking about this matter. Whenever he saw a book on the subject, he’d buy it and read it. Heaven rewards the diligent—or, as the saying goes, it’s not the thief who steals that you should fear, but the thief who keeps thinking about it!

When he was a freshman, he finally saw a recruitment notice in a radio magazine. The Beijing Cultural Bureau was going to hold its first professional stage lighting and sound training class, aimed at preparing for the upcoming vocational qualification assessment. At the time, most people working in this field held the title of electrician, and their technical skills varied widely. The purpose of this part-time training class was to target employees of these professional organizations.

Brian Carter had no work experience at all and was persuaded to withdraw the first time he applied. But he didn’t give up. They wanted proof of employment? Fine, he asked Uncle Carter to carve a fake stamp, then found some letterhead from the Newsreel Film Studio and forged one. For Uncle Carter and his crew, this was nothing—if they could avoid criminal charges, they could even forge a red-letter document from the Central Military Commission. That’s what it means to love your craft; it’s a basic skill. Without these tricks, how could you travel the country pulling cons?

The staff at the Cultural Bureau in charge of admissions were a bit clueless. Did Brian Carter really look like someone born in 1965? Or maybe they just didn’t care who you were—as long as you had a document with a big red stamp, you could sign up. After all, after paying the registration fee, there was still a unified exam on general knowledge and radio principles. They never expected anyone would spend money and effort to learn something so niche at the time.

Brian Carter did extremely well on the written test, ranking second out of more than 120 candidates, and was honorably admitted. The program lasted a year and a half, with three half-day classes per week. The reason he did so well wasn’t because he was so knowledgeable, but because the test was too easy.

Think about it: the people signing up for the exam were all employees from various organizations, some already in their forties or fifties. The Cultural Bureau staff who wrote the test fully considered their practical difficulties, so aside from the basic knowledge needed for class, there were no hard questions. Even so, more than ninety people failed the exam, and after a make-up test, over seventy still didn’t pass.

Those regular employees had to go home after work to cook and take care of their kids—who had time to study for exams? Besides, they didn’t care about this so-called vocational certificate. In their eyes, being a regular employee meant a lifetime job—if anyone tried to fire them, they’d fight to the end. If they failed, so be it—they didn’t even want to attend the classes!

As a result, in this very first sound engineer and stage lighting engineer vocational qualification training class in all of Beijing, and even the whole country, fewer than fifty people remained—forty-seven to be exact, including the impostor Brian Carter.

In the end, fewer than two-thirds received their graduation certificates. That means the first batch of sound engineers and lighting engineers recognized by the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Culture numbered just over twenty, and Brian Carter was one of them—with excellent grades, too. This is something Brian Carter is proud of for life. No matter what, he made it into the national top twenty.