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Hi, everyone and welcome back to 酒馆. Hi安澜.
Hi, Lulu. Hi, everyone.
You noticed that I didn't say welcome back to Britain Under the Microscope?
Yeah. I did notice that, it was a bit strange.
Because today we are actually going to do TV picks.
Oh. Goody.
Yeah. Just wait for it. It's not a fun TV.
Oh.
Yeah, in fact, it's a really, really, really depressing TV show.
What is it about you and choosing really depressing TV shows for us to talk about?
Well. It is a British TV show.
Okay.
Most of your TV shows can get really depressing.
所以今天是一个特别的【荐剧板块】, 我相信, 这个英剧安澜也看过, 因为我原来跟他讨论过。And the name of this TV show this TV series is “This is Going to Hurt”.
Yes, I have seen that before. So it is a comedy, but it's also a tragedy, and it's also a drama as well.
嗯嗯, 这个中文译名叫做《疼痛难免》。其实我在星期四星期五直播间,就是【看剧解梗】这个环节分享过一集, although it's a really depressing TV show, but I think it's a really good one and the stories behind it and then the issues that it talks about, I thought it's worth a couple of episodes for us to talk about.
Yeah, absolutely.
So in our previous episodes, we have talked a bit about the NHS, but we haven't really talked about the NHS now, like some of the pressures that doctors go through. And this is essentially the main theme of this TV show.
So previously we gave you guys an introduction like a brief introduction of the British medical system, health care system called NHS.英国的一个医疗体系叫National Health Services or Service？
Service.
Service.
就是大家都听过英国的公费医疗就是全民免费医疗,对吧？It sounds like dream come true, sounds great on paper. It sounds great in theory.
But in fact, there are so many problems. There are so many challenges as you can imagine.
Yes. So I won't go too much into the NHS, because we have discussed it before, but it's important to note that the NHS was founded on the principle that healthcare is free. And you can see a doctor, you can get medical treatment quickly, efficiently, and most importantly, completely free of charge.
Just remind me again, it is completely free.
In the UK, it is more or less completely free, prescriptions you need to pay, I think it's around ￡7, but it could have been increased.
Like a nominal charge.

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It's very difficult for me to imagine even though that I’ve lived in the UK and talked to many British people but still, because for me I come from a completely different background, I would have to say, sometimes in China you hear these debate, we're not like an immigration country or immigrant country, but still with when there are more people pouring in from other countries, but I know it's a sensitive topic, but you do hear people say like voicing their concerns about what this will do to, for example, your own belief system, your values, your culture, I know in China they are really nominal number, minimal realistic numbers, but there's still that concern. I'm just wondering if British people are ever concerned about not losing something that's intrinsically British or English.
I would say, yes, there is that concern, particularly if some people feel that the value system or the beliefs of immigrants clashes with what we consider as British values. But the problem is that we can't really define what so called British values actually are. If you ask me as a British person what would be considered British, I wouldn't be able to tell you.
So it's not based on race or ethnicity.
It's not based on race or ethnicity. I would say to a certain extent it's based more on belief and values.
This might be the major difference between China and the UK because for us it’s a lot about blood about ethnicity.
Yeah, in the UK I would say it's a lot less about that, for some people it is, and even though I don't quite understand because what it means to be British is such a fluid concept. It's always changing. I do not think anyone could really define what it is to be British.
Yeah, but you are perhaps very liberal minded in this.
Probably I am.
The other thing that I think of many people even if we put the whole cultural identity, 把这个文化圈认同先放一边, just realistically or pragmatically, I think many voters in the UK they were worried about over stretching or over stretched public services, like health services, housing, etc.
Yeah. Exactly. That was the main concern that immigrants had to overstretch public services and housing. Now to be honest for me, I don't quite agree with that, because housing is a problem in the UK no matter what, it's always been a problem in the UK; and public services, most of our public services rely on immigrants.
That is true, because you just have to take one look at NHS workers, a lot of immigrants.
Yeah. And the thing it's only around 15% of the UK population who are foreign born.
I love the fact that you say only around 15% because for us this is an unthinkable number.
There are some cities in the world where it goes up to about 60%.
Wow. 60%. Then who are the locals, who are the immigrants？
And that's the whole thing. I don't think it really matters because most immigrants work hard, they pay their taxes.
So why can't they live in the UK, why can't they just live their lives? They don't break the law, they just live their lives as honest citizens.
Yeah. I mean I have to admit although I consider myself quite liberal minded, but when it comes to immigration I do have my own Like concerns about, for example, if you think in the future, the whole trend is going to be we're all blended together, but then we will have to rethink about our cultural identity. What defines us? Would there still be the idea of cultural identity?
To be honest that I don't quite agree with that because ultimately, humans will always try to seek some form of cultural identity. It's just the cultural identity, the values, the belief, what is considered the culture changes.
All right. So far we've actually had a lot of talks, debates, but now let's look at the pragmatics. So now how easy it is to immigrate to the UK just out of curiosity .
From this Spring, the government have made it harder. Immigrants will have to earn￡37,800 to get a skilled visitor visa.

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In today's Buzzword Mix, our Buzzword is Pink Tax.
The phrase itself is very easy to understand. Pink is a color and tax is, well t-a-x. But there is a lot to be said about this concept. So let's dive into it.
First of all, let's look at the definition. What is Pink Tax?
首先我们来看看什么是所谓的粉红税.
Pink tax is a markup on goods and services marketed to women and for which men pay less for similar products and services.
所谓的粉红税指的就是goods and services marketed to women. 营销给女性消费者的这些货品和服务上面的一个markup, a pricing markup or a markup in pricing, simply means higher price.
在讲到价钱的时候, markup就是一个价格加成也就是加价.
For instance, if you buy a cola in a restaurant, it's probably going to be a lot more expensive than in a supermarket. That is because restaurants have a markup on the drinks they serve.
比如说在餐厅里点酒水肯定比在超市买要贵不少, 这就是一个price markup.
So pink tax is a markup on goods and services marketed to women.
所以粉红税它指的就是针对女性营销的产品和服务, 与卖给男性的类似的产品和服务相比较, 会有一个明显的markup, 加价.
This phenomenon is often attributed to gender-based price discrimination.
Gender-based price discrimination也就是基于性别的价格歧视.
The reason why we call it pink tax is not really about stereotyping women. It simply is from the observation that many of the affected products are pink.
而为什么叫它粉红税? 不知道大家有没有注意到, 比如说同样一个品牌同样都是卖洗发水, 卖给男士的, 通常是蓝色的瓶子; 卖给女士的, 通常都是粉红色的瓶子.
This is the word pink tax comes from.
Now in 2015, the issue got a lot of attention when New York City's department of consumer affairs found many instances of gendered pricing when it examined 794 products sold in the city for consumers of all ages.
粉红税这个事情并不是一个特别新的概念, 在2015年纽约的消费者事务部门就通过对市面上794种产品的观察, 发现了有这样的一个概念叫做gendered pricing, 也就是男女有别的定价.
However, researchers have been noticing and analyzing this phenomenon since at least the 1990s.
这个事情再往前倒, 在上世纪90年代末期就已经有人提出来并且观察到了.
Although we call it pink tax, it's not really a tax, it's just a price markup. So when a company sells a pink product, the female version for more than a blue product, the male version, the additional revenue from the pink product does not go to the government as tax.
为什么说它其实不是税, 就是它多收了女性产品跟粉红色产品的这些钱, 并不会作为税收上交.
The only part that benefits from the pink tax are the companies that charge women more than men.
These gender based price disparities are prevalent in several sectors and can be seen in many day to day products. But one of the most visible is personal care products.
这种gender-based price disparities基于性别的价格差异, 在很多的日常产品里都能见到, 但是最明显的是在 personal care products, 也就是个护产品.
These include, for example, soaps, lotions, razor blades, shampoos, and deodorants.
In the United States, one government study analyzed 800 gender specific products from nearly 100 brands. The report found that on average, personal care products marketed to women were 13% more expensive than similar men's products. Accessories and adult clothing were 7% and 8% more expensive respectively.

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Hi, everyone, and welcome back to Britain Under the Microscope. 欢迎回来【闲话英伦】. Hi, 安澜.
Hi lulu, hi everyone.
安澜, can I propose a topic？
Yeah. Of course.
The other day, some students and I when we were talking about international cities or like cosmopolitan cities, what makes a city truly cosmopolitan, and to me it just feels like it's not so much all the city has many foreigners, but more like when you look at people living in a city, you don't really know who are the foreigners, don't really know who are the locals.
I completely agree. I think if you still look around and say those are foreigners, then it's not really an international city. An international city is a city where people from all across the world will actually make it their home.
Yeah.And London, to some extent, gives me that vibes. So I thought let's talk about immigration,
Very complicated subject.
I know, it's very heavy as well. So maybe let's just start with some light discussions and gradually get into the heavy bits.
 I think it's not gonna take too long to get into the heavy side because if you read British newspapers or if you see the news in the UK, there is so much talk about immigration.
And it’s such a controversial topic, very controversial. 很有争议的那种话题.
安澜听过中文里说哪个国家是移民国家这个说法.
Yeah.
So UK has a very long history of immigration, right？
He does. For example, if you look at our Royal Family, our Royal Family originally comes from Germany.
Oh Yes. There are often historical comedies about that fact.
Exactly
They didn't even speak English.
And the thing is that London in particular has always attracted immigrants, and you can see this in lot the port cities as well, like Liverpool. There's always been immigrants. So the idea of someone being like completely British, I never really quite believe that because you have to think that the UK and particularly England is not very far away from Europe, it’s an island, but the distance between France and England is not that far.
Yeah, I think and also you keep hearing things like a second generation, third generation 第二代, 第三代移民, usually by third generation they just completely become local.
Well even by second generation normally, and sometimes even by first generation. So I think it's important to define exactly when immigration increased dramatically and that was after the World War II.
You know you call those waves like immigration waves. So the wave was after the World War II?
After the war, after the bombing and after obviously black soldiers and lots of people died, there was a need for skilled and unskilled labor to rebuild after the war.
And back then, UK had an Empire and they encouraged people from across what was then the Empire to come to the UK and this included probably one of the most famous incidents of immigration in British history and that was the Windrush.
Windrush, was that the name of a ship?

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Hi, everyone. And welcome back to your favourite segment Sound Of Musicals. 欢迎回来【曲外之音】 . Hi Oliver.
Hello.
So we are going to continue our discussion about The Sound Of Music, 【音乐之声】.
Yes. We're moving on to themes and music today, I believe.
Last time you walked us through the storyline, it's pretty simple, right? But there are many themes that were mentioned or discussed or shown in this musical.
No, I think the main point of the musical is, as we talked about last time, it's kind of a feel good movie with some quite serious background to it. But in the end, it's a few themes which are worth talking about.
 First of all, obviously pretty clear it's family and love.
Definitely so. Yeah .the whole musical is based around this family, the kids and the father are kind of estranged and separated until Maria comes in, wins the kids then wins the captain, everybody falls in love, and then they run away together into the mountains. It's quite a nice theme through the movie.
Yeah. If you think about it, I think Maria, the novice nun, single handedly changed the family dynamics, before it wasn't so much as a family but more like a little army in training, trained by the dad.
It definitely was, yeah he being a naval officer who's recently come back home, I think he doesn't really know how to raise his own children.
Exactly.
He's gone through many many governess and has told the governess says here's the whistle when you need them, blow the whistle this way for child number one, this way for number two, and Maria just refuses to it. I think she says their children, they're not dogs or something like that, and she just says no straight away.
On yes. I remember that bit. It's like when captain von Trapp, I think when they first met, it's like just whistle when... to signal for each kid to come out. And then when I need you, this is the whistle you're gonna hear. And Maria just basically says I... just protested straight away and say, no, I'm not a dog. I'm not gonna answer to whistle. And then he said just follow my lead, follow my order. And then so Maria says, so captain, what is your whistle?
That's it. Yes. And he gets very, very upset by that question.
Yeah, but I mean it's quite common in sort of like military families.  I don't know if it's the same in other cultures but in China definitely .
I feel like I mean I've got no real experience myself, but certainly in movies, TV shows, it does feel like the military father or military mother is always kind of bringing work home in a way and kind of raising their children as they treat the other soldiers they work with.  So yeah. I think this is quite a common thing which the musical has picked up on.
Yeah. And what Maria is bringing tenderness, laughter and just joy into the family.
Yeah. She's breaking through these the restrictions on the rules that captain von Trapp has put in place for an organized and well behaved family and she just has fun with them and lets them have fun and teaches them how to sing as well.

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We went out again into the frosty air. “Now for Mr. Breckinridge,” Holmes said as he buttoned his coat.



We zigzagged through the back streets. Soon we were in the Covent Garden market. We saw the name Breckinridge on one of the largest stalls. The owner had a long, sharp face. He and a small boy were just closing up.



“Good evening. It’s a cold night,” said Holmes. “You are sold out of geese, I see.”



“I can let you have five hundred geese in the morning,” the man replied.



“That won’t do,” said Holmes. “I want the same kind of geese you sold to the Alpha Inn. They were fine birds. Where did you get them?”



To my surprise, the question made Breckinridge angry.



“Now then, mister,” he said. “What is all this about? I haven’t heard anything else all day. ‘Where did you get all the geese? Who did you sell the geese to?’ You would think they were the only geese in the world. People are making such a fuss about them.”



“Well, I have nothing to do with the others who have been asking,” Holmes said. He sounded as if he did not care very much about it. “You won’t tell us. So we’ll have to cancel the bet. You see, I’ve bet five pounds those Alpha Inn geese were raised in the country.”



“Then you will lose,” said Breckinridge. “Those geese were raised here in town.”



“You’ll never make me believe that.”



“Will you bet, then?” Breckinridge asked.



“That would just be stealing your money,” answered Holmes. “But I’ll take you on.”



Breckinridge laughed. He called the small boy to his side. “Bring me the books, Bill,” said he.



“Now, then, Mr. Know-It-All,” he went on. “You see this little book? This is the list of folks from whom I buy. The numbers tell where to find them in the big book. See this page? It’s in black ink. Those are my country goose-raisers. See this list in red? Those are my town people. Now, look at that third name. Just read it to me.”



Holmes read. “Mrs. Oakshott, 117 Brixton Road. Number 249.”



“Quite so. Now look up that number in this big book.”



Holmes turned a page. “Here you are. Mrs. Oakshott, 117 Brixton Road. Eggs and Birds.”



“Now,” said Breckinridge. “What is the last thing it says there? ‘December twenty-second. Twenty-four geese. At seven and a half shillings. Sold to the Alpha Inn at twelve shillings.’



“Well? What do you say now?” Breckinridge asked.

 Hi everyone, and welcome back to your favorite segment Sound of Musicals. 欢迎回来你们最喜欢的板块【曲外之音】. Hi, Oliver.
Hello. Good to be back. Hello, hello.
It has been a while.
It has, hasn't it, yeah. Very busy recently, I'm afraid.
Yeah. Same here. But I can't wait for us to dive, re-dive back into the sea of musicals or musical movies.
I know, I've been looking forward to this all week. So which musical movie do you want to dive into today?
I give you a hint. This is an oldy but a goody. So, Doe, a deer, a female deer.
Ray, a drop of golden sun. I know, I know, I've got it. It’s a good one, it is a good one, The Sound Of Music, classic.
The Sound Of Music, 音乐之声。其实我们这个板块叫做Sound Of Musicals, it's also a play on Sound Of Music.
Yes. It is where this name comes from.
Yeah. So first of all, The Sound Of Music, I'm pretty sure The Sound Of Music is one of those musicals or musical movies that most Chinese audience are quite familiar with. So is it the same in English speaking world The Sound Of Music? Is it something that everyone knows?
I think it is very, very well known. Certainly, it's one of the most well known and popular musicals in many places, many countries. Definitely.
So I know I grew up with my family, my grandfather specifically watched it every year at Christmas. That's how I was kind of introduced to not just The Sound Of Music, but musicals in general, it was kind of my first experience of them.
It does feel like one of those Christmassy or just festive movies to watch, right?
It does, and I'm not entirely sure I could tell you why. But for me, it's a Christmas musical because my grandfather watched it at Christmas.
And again, I'm not sure why, because I don't think there's anything really about Christmas in it at all.
No. No. But I think it's just like happy ending, everyone everything worked out in the end. That sort of, like warm fuzzy type of thing.
It’s, yeah. It's got some serious moments, but overall it is quite a feel good film, isn't it?
Emm. So let's start with the background, we were talking about musical movies, so which came first remind me, was it the musical or was it the Disney film?
Actually. It was a book, it was neither. The first idea of The Sound Of Music, it comes from the memoirs of Maria von Trapp. So the Maria from the musical was a real person.
Oh, I did not know that.
And it's from her memoirs. So she wrote down her experiences of living with the von Trapp family and becoming part of the von Trapp family in Austria during the1930s. From there it became a musical on Broadway in 1959, is when it premiered on Broadway.
And then after that, it became the Disney film that we know today that most people know today.
I see. I never really knew it was based on real life memoir. I thought it was just one of those stories that were just created for the sake of it really.
I know. I was exactly the same when I found this, when I was looking into interesting things to say today. I was quite surprised to find that it was a real thing.
Okay.
So let's get into the story itself. I'm pretty sure a lot of our audience knew the story, but maybe you need a little bit of refreshing, but before you start, von Trapp, this von, v-o-n that sounds aristocratic and German.
It is, yes. Certainly Germany and Austria and a lot of those kind of central European countries. They have a lot of the nobility, the aristocrats, they often have ‘von’ in their name.
Unfortunately. I'm don't really speak much German, so I'm not entirely sure what von means. I need to do my research there.
Von means from, I think it's from, so it's basically you kind of own the... like your family, probably like own the land. That's why you're like from that place or of that place.
Okay, I see. Yeah. So that's the aristocratic noble side of it. I see, okay.
Yeah, and also you said it was set in the 1930s, so that was the beginning of the whole Nazi thing, right?

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Welcome back to Geek Time, advanced. This is Brad. How's it going? Lulu?
Hi, Brad. It's going.
All right. So I thought we'd get back into talking about liminal spaces.
Woo, spooky.
Yeah. Now what really started liminal spaces as being part of today's like vernacular things people talk about, it’s something that happened on Reddit. There's whole discussion boards for people to post pictures that evoke this feeling of liminality.
Hang on a minute.
Yeah.
This for those of you who don't really know Reddit. Reddit有点像国内比如说百度贴吧这样的一个存在, 或者更早, 还有什么天涯, 基本上这样的一个存在.
It's basically discussion boards, right? Reddit.
Right.
Community discussions. Yeah. So you mean people are posting pictures that trigger or evoke this liminality feeling, so these eerie pictures?
Yeah, but at first people were just posting interesting pictures that they would see. And then people started talking about, oh I think I've been there before that I kind of have Deja Vu. And so the whole feeling of liminality started like showing up.
And then people started thinking “I think I was there when I was a kid” that's possible because when buildings are created, they're often built with similar techniques or similar paints and things like that.
So you see one building from your childhood, then you see another one maybe from across the country. It could possibly be very similar “oh, I think I've been there, but I've never been to that city before”.
So it started off as being quite nice. It started off as some sort of nostalgia, but then it just turned eerie.
Like some people started seeing pictures and they just see it and they can't really place it and they don't really understand where it came from. And so people just start getting really weird feelings and it's, it can be something similar to like that whole idea of the uncanny valley. When you see something just like really makes me uncomfortable when I see this. I don't know why.
Yeah. Uncanny valley, I think we have talked about this before就是恐怖谷效应. It's like when a doll or like a machine looks really...or a robot looks really, very very similar to a human, but you know it's not a human. Then that gives you that uncanny valley sensations, same as places, I think, with liminal spaces. It looks like the place that you have been, it gives you the sense of Deja Vu, but you know it's not.
For sure, it's like sometimes when people see pictures, it gives you that nostalgia feeling. But when you see a photo and you think I've been there but I can't place it. I don't know why I have this feeling like I've been there. Something in your brain gets triggered and it gives you not a good feeling, gives you a bad feeling.
Yeah. If we talk about that, we cannot not talk about the Back Rooms.
Yeah. One of the first pictures that the kind of like sparked off the whole liminality debate or discussion was the Back Rooms.
Back Rooms是叫后室, 就是办公室的那个室, 后室Back Rooms. It's a game, isn't it?
Originally, it just started off as a picture and then became a video. Someone posted a video connected to this whole idea of the back rooms. And then it turned into a game.
But, yeah, so first it was just a picture and someone you start to say, I think I've been there, and then like I had a dream about this place, and in the dream, it was just a place that would go on forever and ever, no matter what they did, they couldn't find an exit and things were following them.
And then there was a video posted on line. This is a very strange word, but it's called a no clip.
A no clip?
A no clip is when you hit something in the world and merging with that makes you go into another dimension or into another place. The whole idea came from video games when your figure in the game went through a wall where it shouldn't actually go through the wall, and then it ends up in a place where it's not supposed to be. (no clip无碰撞模式：一种在计算机游戏中的“作弊模式”，允许玩家穿过墙壁、地形和其他物体，不受碰撞检测的限制。)
就不可能的空间. And that's back rooms.

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It was the second morning after Christmas. I visited my friend Sherlock Holmes to give him my good wishes for the holiday season.

I found the great detective lying on the sofa. He was smoking his favorite pipe. Next to the sofa stood a chair. On the chair’s back, there was a black hat. The hat was dirty and torn.

A magnifying glass lay on the seat of the chair. Holmes had been looking at the hat.

“You know Peterson, the doorman?” asked Holmes.

“Yes,” said I.

“He found this hat. He brought it here this morning—along with a good, fat goose. Right now the goose is cooking over Peterson’s fire.”

I looked rather confused and Holmes continued to explain.

“It is a strange story. It was four o’clock on Christmas morning. Peterson was walking home late. He had been at a little party. Peterson could see a man walking ahead of him. He was a tall man carrying a white goose over his shoulder.

“The tall man got to the corner of Goodge Street. Just then a gang of hooligans came into the street. One of the young men knocked off the tall man’s hat. The tall man tried to fight back with his stick. Instead, he broke the window behind him.

“Peterson rushed up to help the tall stranger. But at the sound of the breaking glass, the man dropped the goose and ran. He must have been afraid that Peterson was a policeman who would arrest him for breaking the glass. The gang ran away too. So Peterson was left with the goose—and this hat.”

“Which, surely, he gave back to the owner?” asked I.

“My dear fellow. There lies the problem. True, we know the NAME of the owner. See? Here’s a small card that was tied to the left leg of the goose. The card says, ‘For Mrs. Henry Baker.’ Then, here are the letters ‘H. B.’ inside the hat. So we’re pretty sure the tall man was Henry Baker. But there are thousands of people named Baker in London. And HUNDREDS of them must be named Henry.

“Well, Peterson brought the hat to me. He kept the goose as long as he could. But today it had to be cooked or it would spoil. So Peterson took the goose home. He left the hat for me.”

At that moment the door flew open. Peterson, the doorman, rushed into the room. His face was red.

“The goose, Mr. Holmes! The goose, sir!” he gasped.

“What about it?” asked Holmes.

“See here, sir! See what my wife found inside!” He held out his hand. There lay a shining blue stone. It was no bigger than a bean in size. But it was so pure and bright that it twinkled like a star.

Sherlock Holmes sat up. “My goodness, Peterson!” said he. “This is a treasure indeed. I suppose you know what you have there?”

“Not the Countess of Morcar’s Blue Carbuncle!” I broke in.

“Indeed,” Holmes replied. “I ought to know this stone’s size and shape. Haven’t I been reading about it in The Times every single day? The countess says she will give whoever finds it a thousand pounds.”

“That’s right,” said Holmes. “It was on December twenty-second—just five days ago. The police have arrested a plumber named John Horner. I have the story here, I think.”

He found the page he was looking for. He read the news story out loud.

JEWEL ROBBERY AT HOTEL COSMOPOLITAN

John Horner, a plumber, was arrested today. The police say he stole a jewel from the jewel case of the Countess of Morcar. The jewel is known as the Blue Carbuncle.

Horner was arrested because of a story told by James Ryder. Ryder works for the hotel. Ryder said that he took Horner to the Countess of Morcar’s room to fix a pipe. That was on the very day of the robbery.

Ryder stayed in the room for a while. But he was called away. Horner was left in the room alone.

When Ryder got back, Horner was nowhere around. But the dresser had been forced open. A jewel box was lying on the dressing table. The box was empty.

The police say that Horner put up a fight when he was arrested. “I didn’t do it!” Horner had cried. But Horner had once served time for

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Hi everyone, and welcome back to Geek Time. 欢迎回来【极客时间】. Hi, Brad.
Hey, lulu.
So today I thought we can talk about something spooky.
Like supernatural, ghost, vampires?
No, actually spooky, but in a geeky way.
All right. What are you thinking?
I'm thinking we should talk about liminal space.
Woo. That's always a fun topic. Hahahaha.
Yeah. I know that you have heard of this.
Oh, yeah, definitely.
Emm. Liminal space可能对于我们很多听众小伙伴会是一个很陌生的概念, 即使用中文说出来, 你仍然会觉得很陌生。
但是如果你喜欢游戏啊什么的这种之类的, 或者也是一个geek的话, 你应该听过这个中文被翻译成阈限空间, 就是阈值的阈，阈限空间. Liminal spaces, it's actually getting really popular right now.
Yeah. You see lots of videos on YouTube about it.
Emm. On Chinese social media, well, I mean, within certain geeky circles, very popular. Haha, I think it's very popular on like Bilibili. So Brad give us a definition. What is a liminal space?
Basically, it's kind of like, it's an empty space that gives you a feeling that it's abandoned and eerie. You feel like you've been there before, but because it's abandoned, you kind of feel like you shouldn't be there, but when you think about a liminal space, like the whole idea, like liminal, is something that's translated as being the threshold between two places kind of like a doorway.
And so when you're kind of like in this transition, when you go from a world where there's lots of people, and then you go into this place where it seems like it's empty and abandoned. It's that whole feeling, it's like “I shouldn't be here. There's something wrong.” You can also think about it like more psychological terms. It's a place where it's a time in your life when you're going through a transition.
Transition.
Maybe from childhood to adulthood, or just any type of change in your life can be a liminal space.
Yeah. Liminal space它有很多的这个含义.
但是，现在大家看到那些有点恐怖游戏里面那种liminal space, 基本上，就是没有人的空间, 比如说 abandoned houses, abandoned hallway, abandoned mall, 然后像Brad刚才说的,这些地方, 虽然没有真正有怪物出现, 但是就会让你感觉下一秒，就这个地方会出现什么样的事情。你会觉得非常诡异, 你会觉得非常的不舒适。
I think they've also described liminal space as this space deep in our psyche, it's like the space between consciousness and unconsciousness.
Yeah.
This is why when you are talking about the place of transition, and like it's a space between two places. This is why it's very unsettling. I think this is the word probably that best used to describe liminal space, it’s very unsettling.
Definitely, unsettling or eerie, that kind of feeling.
Yeah. So let's talk about everyday liminal spaces, actually they’re everywhere in our life.
Yeah. I mentioned a doorway. Oftentimes when people have something on their mind, they walk through a doorway. They forget what they were doing and why they were going into that room. That's kind of just because like your brain goes through this transition when you walk through a doorway, aside from doorways, stairways, hallways, bridges, a house when someone's moved out and there's no one has come back in yet. This is also a liminal space.
Like abandoned space as well.
Yeah.
Like abandoned mall, abandoned hospital. All of these are rich soil for all of these horror films, actually I’m a huge fan of the horror genre. I mean, I've been watching horror films for all these years, like before I never really encountered the word liminal space, but a lot of those unsettling feelings that I got watching these all sorts of horror, a lot of them is because they're linked with liminal space. Even when no monster’s jumping out, it's still like abandoned house. Why do we find abandoned house, abandoned malls? Spooky or eerie. Right? It's the idea of liminal space.
Yeah.

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In Chinese tradition, Qing Ming is a day for remembrance, a day for us to cherish the memory of our loved ones who passed away, and also to pay tribute to our ancestors.

 

In the past few days, you could see on social media and also in many English-speaking programs, their long list of vocabulary related to Qing Ming, the rituals and the stories about this tradition.

 

But this is not what I'm going to talk about in my show today, because for most of us, Qing Ming is not just about the theoretical knowledge and words on paper. It is connected to a very soft part of your heart. It is a day for remembrance, and especially if you have experienced the loss of loved one.

 

So in my episode today, Lulu is going to share with you some of the sayings in English by people who have also lost someone, and they're trying to cherish their memory.

 

今天小酒馆里，就着清明我们来说说怀念。

 

In English, when someone passed away, you usually see the word “in the loving memory of …”, in the loving memory of someone who passed away.

Sometimes it's very difficult to forget someone who gives you so much to remember. So let's look at some of these sayings from the famous to the anonymous. But love and emotions in these words are very genuine, all the same.

 

The first saying of the day from the Greek playwright’s, Euripides欧里庇得斯, and he wrote:

 

Come back, even as a shadow, even as a dream, 归来吧，哪怕只是一片影子一个梦境也好，归来吧。

 

Sometimes we can miss someone so much, but we don't even realize it.

This is why in the second saying, it says:

 

Sometimes memories sneak out of my eyes and roll down my cheeks.

 

Sneak out means to secretly get out. So here memories turn into tears. 有时回忆会从眼角偷偷溜出来，滑落我的腮边。

 

We may not even realize how much we miss someone until we feel the tears.

There are so many people in the world. Yet for us, there are only a few that truly matter, this is why saying number three said:

 

Sometimes when one person is absent, the whole world seems depopulated.

Depopulated means not having enough people. 明明只少了那么一个人, 整个世上却都冷清了.

 

Sometimes when one person is absent, the whole world seems depopulated. I'm sure a lot of people feel like that when they've lost someone that matter to them the most.