英文小酒馆 LHH

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Hi, everyone. And welcome back to 【It Means What? 】 Yeah.Thank you, 安澜. Every time. 欢迎大家回到我们的新板块【词源考古研究所】. Hi, 安澜. Hi, Lulu. Hi, everyone.So 安澜, if I ask you about the hottest topic in the world of technology, what do you think it would be? Well.Two letters.It is gotta be AI.Yes.And to talk about AI就说到人工智能的话, of course, we need to talk about robots.Yes.机器人. I know a lot of you probably have trouble pronouncing that word, although it's very easy, but I've heard many mispronunciations.So for American pronunciation, you would pronounce it Robot [ˈroʊˌbɑt], and British pronunciation?We will say robot [ˈrəʊbɒt].Roughly the same.Yeah, but it doesn't really matter, because it's not an English word anyway.Oh. Is it not?Nope. It actually comes from Czech.就是捷克, 捷克语. Was it also robot in Czech? In Czech, it’s - there's a word “robota”.Robota, let me guess, this gotta be a word related to machine, automation, technological advances, all of those fancy things.No, it means forced labor, slave or serf.What?That's what it means.Okay. Forced labor, 强制劳动, slave奴隶Yeah.Serf我记得的话s-e-r-f对吧? Yeah. That's right.是农奴的意思. Yeah. That's what it means.By the way, what is the difference between a serf and a slave?Well. Serfs were like slaves, as they were forced to stay on the land where they lived. But serfs were part of the land. If they were sold, it's normally with land.And they had some rights.Yeah, they have some very basic rights.But they had to pay for every one of those rights, if I remembered correctly.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~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. And then the unemployment what you call it the Dole.Yeah in spoken English we will call it the Dole. But if you actually see it in governments, notice it is called jobseekers’ allowance.Jobseekers’ allowance, I like the positivity instead of unemployment allowance.Yeah, the idea is that you only getting that money because you're looking for a job as opposed to live in unemployment benefit.I see, I see. So, you pay one contribution into national insurance, and that covers medical, that covers maternity, that covers pension, and that also covers unemployment.So, it pretty much covers everything. And this was first introduced in 1911. So it's been around for a very long time and it's paid by everybody who is earning over£242 a week.A week. Okay, so that's roughly about £1,000 a month then over that. But I suppose it's roughly the same - is the equivalent as the personal allowance threshold, the tax threshold like£12,000.Yeah, and this is something you start paying at the age of 16.So even when I was doing part-time jobs, I probably wouldn't have paid income tax, but I would still have to pay national insurance contributions.Do you have to pay the same amount of national insurance, no matter how much money you make? No, it still has its own brackets. So it's 12% of your weekly earnings between£242 and £967. And it's then 2% of your weekly earnings above£967.I see. So you have again the brackets for people with different levels of income.Yeah. And everybody in the UK, every British citizen and people who are working in the UK are given a national insurance number.This is how you pay into and also access national insurance.Yeah, yeah. So every time I fill out tax return or I fill out any paperworks, I have to add my national insurance number.I see. When you go to the doctors, is that also the one that you show? No, you don't have to show it. There's another number, an NHS number to access medical, national insurance is basically a way of calculating how much you've paid.So, for example, I've lived in China for many years now. What I do is I pay voluntary contributions.Voluntary means they don't force you to do it, but you choose to do it.I choose to do it, because this is important to get a state pension.So, let me get this straight. So, if you are a British person, a British national living overseas, working overseas, you don't have to pay national insurance in the UK.No.But if you don't, then you won't get the state pension.Exactly. So both men and women at the moment, they get their pension at 66.66. Wow.66, yeah. It's probably gonna go up very, very soon. And what you have to do is you have to pay for 35 years in order to get the full amount.35 years. I think this is much longer than in China.Yeah. Now the good thing is that paying voluntary contributions is not really that expensive. It's only about £700 or £800 a year.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~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.So, the topic I'm going to propose today, well, I say “I propose” is actually from one of our fans.Oh, brilliant.So she proposed this topic, because she was recently hired by this company, and she's dealing with all these social insurance tax deduction “五险一金” thing.Okay. Oh, dear. I can imagine that's very complicated.And she wanted us to talk about what it's like in the UK.Okay.But first things first, 安澜, you know the idea of “五险一金”, right? Well, to be perfectly honest, I probably understand the Chinese system more than I do the British system.Of course. Because fair enough, you have been working in China for all these years.Yeah, exactly.You have to pay all of those as well.Yes.But for those of you who are still students or you don't really know that much about 五险一金, let me give you a very quick crash course.咱们说的五险一金包括五险是养老保险, This is like the pension, 医疗保险, medical insurance, 失业保险, unemployment insurance, 工伤保险, work-related injury insurance and生育保险, maternity insurance.一金就是住房公积金housing fund. Yes.安澜, you don't have housing fund, do you?No. I don't have housing fund. I don't think I actually have to pay housing fund because as a foreigner.You don’t have access.I don't have access. Okay. So that's a little bit of introduction to our 五险一金. Now before we get into the UK system, I assume that the basic concept is the same, like pay, there's the idea of gross pay. And there’s the idea of net pay也有这种税前税后的概念. Yeah. So gross pay is your full pay before tax and that's normally what is advertised when you apply for a job. That's normally what's written on your contract. Your net pay is your take-home pay.Oh, you call it take-home pay.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Hello again欢迎来到Happy Hour英文小酒馆。关注公众号璐璐的英文小酒馆，加入我们的酒馆社群，邂逅更精彩更广阔的世界In olden times, when if you made a wish, it would always come true, there lived a king whose daughters were all beautiful, but the youngest was so beautiful that the sun itself, which has seen so much, was astonished whenever it shone in her face. Close by the king’s castle lay a great dark forest, and under an old tree in the forest was a well. When the day was very warm, the king’s child went out into the forest and sat down by the side of the cool fountain, and when she was bored, she took a golden ball, and threw it up on high and caught it, and this ball was her favourite toy. Now it so happened that the princess’ golden ball fell on to the ground beyond and rolled straight into the well. The king’s daughter followed it with her eyes, but it vanished, and the well was deep - so deep that the bottom could not be seen. She began to cry and cried louder and louder. As she was complaining, someone said to her, “Why are you so upset, king’s daughter?” She looked around to the side from where the voice came, and saw a frog stretching forth its thick, ugly head from the water. “Ah! Is it you who just spoke to me?” Said she. “I am crying because my golden ball has fallen into the well.” “Do not cry,” answered the frog, “I can help you, but what will you give me if I bring your golden ball back?” “Whatever you will have, dear frog,” said she. "My clothes, my pearls and jewels, and even my golden crown." The frog answered, “I do not care for your clothes, your pearls and jewels, or your golden crown, but if you will love me and let me be your friend, and sit with you, and eat with you, and play with you. If you promise me this, I will go down below, and bring you back your golden ball.” “Oh yes,” said she, “I promise, if you will bring me my ball back again.” She however, thought, “How silly this frog is! He lives in the water with the other frogs, and can’t spend time with humans!” But the frog, when he had heard this promise, put his head into the water and sank down, and in a short while came swimming up again with the ball in his mouth, and threw it on the grass. The king’s daughter was delighted to see her pretty toy once more, picked it up, and ran away with it. “Wait, wait,” said the frog. “Take me with you. I can’t run as fast as you.” But all he could do was croak loudly. She did not listen to it, but ran home and soon forgot the poor frog, who was forced to go back into his well again. The next day when she sat herself down for dinner with the king and all the courtiers, and as she was eating from her golden plate, something came creeping splish splash, splish splash, up the marble staircase, and when it had got to the top, it knocked at the door and cried, “Princess, open the door for me.” She ran to see who was outside, but when she opened the door, there sat the frog in front of it. Then she quickly slammed the door and sat down to dinner again, and was quite frightened. The king saw that she was absolutely terrified and said, “My child, what are you scared of? Is there some monster outside who wants to carry you away?” “Ah, no,” replied she. “It is no monster but a disgusting frog.” “What does a frog want with you?” “Ah, father, yesterday as I was in the forest sitting by the well, playing, my golden ball fell into the water. And because I cried so much, the frog brought it out again for me, and I promised him he should be my companion, but I never thought he would be able to come out of his water! And now he is outside there, and wants to come in.” In the meantime, it knocked a second time, and cried, “Princess! Open the door for me! You promised me!”

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~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.Now let's use a magnifying glass and go into these stately homes or manor houses and look at the rooms and also look at the servants.Absolutely.So, what is a typical country house? All that I know it’s huge.Yes.There will be lots of bedrooms. There will probably be a drawing room.Hang on a minute. I always wondered this, what is a drawing room? It's not for people to actually draw there.No, no. In ordinary houses, it's like a living room. But a drawing room is probably a little bit more formal, so you'd have living rooms or drawing rooms. So, some would be for guests, some would just be for the family themselves.I don't know if I remember this correctly, when I first visited Buckingham Palace, there's a drawing room there.Yeah.So that is a very typical thing for those huge like palaces or huge houses.Exactly. So you have different types of drawing rooms. So, some were more formal, some were a little bit less formal.But it's the living space.It's the living space.就跟我们的客厅一样, 只不过是 much much bigger.Yeah. In big houses, in the UK now, you might see we don't call them drawing rooms anymore, but you might see there's like a guest living room where if people come to visit your home, you might entertain them in there.But normally at the back or in another room, there’s a room where you would spend time just as a family.I see. I see. I'm sure there's like the normal the usual dining room.Dining room, libraries, studies, a gallery for art as well.Yes, because they would collect pieces, wouldn’t they? Yeah. Of course, there will be servant quarters as well.Servant quarters which is usually the downstairs part.Yeah. It's the bedrooms for the servants.Umm, 就这种upstairs, downstairs.Exactly.我们之前聊到过的就是在英国那种老的大宅子里面, 等级森严的, 有所谓的楼上楼下upstairs, downstairs, upstairs for the lord and lady.And downstairs for the servants. Apart from that there would normally be huge gardens, land for farming, as well as conservatories and something called an orangery.Actually, just put orangery aside, which is a word I've never heard until this topic. Even conservatories, I think it's difficult for a lot of people to understand, or I don't think they've heard about this before. I only got to know the word conservatory when I was looking at the house listing, the real estate listings in the UK. Conservatory, 如果你是在英国租房或者买房的话, 你就会经常看到这个词, 就what is a conservatory? A conservatory is almost like a type of greenhouse. It's a room that is part of the garden. So, it's normally mostly glass. People would have plants in there, people would sit in there, particularly if it's not a very nice day. So it's like being in the garden, but without being cold and wet.所以就有点像半温室, 但有点半阳光房的那种感觉。There are places for people who sit and enjoy the garden。Exactly, when it's a bit too cold to enjoy the garden.Yeah. What is an orangery? Is not a place just for oranges, is it?It is.Okay.Well. Oranges and lemons. So, you have to think in the 17th 18th century oranges, pineapples, lemons were incredibly expensive. So some rich people, what they used to do was create an orangery. So, they could grow this type of fruit that comes from Italy and other hotter places.So they need a greenhouse for that sort of thing.Yeah. Exactly. And it used to be part of the decoration.Interesting, little bit of the tropical paradise that you guys were like aspiring to have.Exactly. You have to think that most of these rich people, they would travel to Italy and France when they were young, and they used to bring things back.Yeah, I can totally see the charm of that. So that's about the anatomy of the house itself.Now let's talk about the servant quarter....

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~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.Hi everyone. You sound a bit nasal.I've got a little bit of a cold.Okay. I suppose it adds a different type of charm.Yeah. And it's a good thing. It's audio, I don't look that great at the moment.All right. So, chitchat aside, let us get into today's topic. You know, when a lot of Chinese people when they think about British or English drama就很多人看英剧的时候, I think they start with, you know, what you call it? Big houses, servants, lords, ladies…Yeah. Kind of like sort of period drama.对, 你们管那个叫period drama, 有点时代剧那个意思。So for example when I was watching Downtown Abbey.Yes.唐顿庄园. And also some episodes of Miss Marple like Agatha Christie's, 阿婆的一些都是这种大庄园里面。Yes. So it’s that time, it's the early 20th century. It's the era of the manor house.I thought today let's focus on that. What did you say? You called them Manor houses. Well. There's lots of different names for them. You can call the manor houses, country houses or stately homes.Manor is m-a-n-o-r.Yeah.What does that mean “Manor”? Well. The manor was basically the big house and the land around it.就是一个像庄园这种感觉。对吧Yeah. So, we would still say, for example, the lord or lady of the manor.By the way, statistically and realistically, how many British people still live or still own that type of manor houses?Very very very very few.It's not just, I mean just being rich, is not enough, is it?No.据我所知, 他好像是要有什么原来的那种贵族aristocrats。Well. You get some rich people that they do buy these big houses, they probably don't own much of the land around them. But the thing is - incredibly expensive to keep. And normally if you're looking at more of a traditional manor house, it comes with a lot of responsibilities.Responsibilities? I thought that's just a private home, you just take care of it like we do to our houses or flats.No, traditionally being the lord of the manor means that you have very close ties to the village, because the land is so big or it was so big that they would have its own little industries, it would have its own farms. And, it comes with a lot of responsibilities for the villagers, the people who live nearby.Oh, that's why. I'm sure a lot of you when you are watching TV shows like Downtown Abbey think about Lord Grantham.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Hi, everyone. And welcome back to our new segment. It means what？Yeah. OK, your YEAH is getting less passionate. Anyhow欢迎回来我们的新板块词源考古研究所. Hi, 安澜. Hi, 璐璐. Hi, everyone. So let me propose the word of the day. Okay. This is a word that - well basically will bring up some painful memory of the past 3 years. Okay. So, you know it has something to do with pandemic. Yeah. Is this something we probably all got? And that is the word vaccine. Oh yes. Vaccine or vaccination. 就是接种疫苗, 对吧？疫苗. I'm pretty sure you all got vaccinated. Well, for COVID. Oh, yeah, yeah, I got vaccinated quite a few times, actually I think now.Me too, me too. But I've always wondered, although we've talked about vaccination and all the relevant words and expressions in other episodes. But where does this word even come from? Vaccine? Is it medically originated?No, it's actually a Latin word and it comes from the word for cow. Cow like mooooooo, cow. Moo, cow. Vacca.所以是拉丁文的牛的意思. I fail to see the connection between modern medicine or medical treatment and moo cows. Well, we just call them cows in English. If you call them moo cows, it sounds a little bit stupid. Okay, thank you. That's alright. But I'm pretty sure there's interesting background story. Well yeah. And it all comes from when vaccines were first invented. So, this was in the 18th century and a British scientist named Edward Jenner. Now Edward Jenner was a doctor as well as a scientist. And he noticed something quite strange. That June that time, when smallpox was everywhere.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Welcome back to geek time. We're gonna be talking about cryptocurrency for the advanced lesson. Hey, what's going on? Lulu?Well, I'm prepared to be even more confused.Hahaha. Don't worry. I think this might be easier.Yeah, in the previous episode, we were talking about how cryptocurrency has no central authority or central regulatory bodies to really oversee it. For me, that just sounds like a problem waiting to happen, really sounds like troubles. Because definitely, some people are gonna use it for criminal activities, you know.Exactly. That's one of the things that a lot of people talk about cryptocurrency is the fact that it's connected to crime, which is - you can say that for just about any currency, but cryptocurrency is like the major tool for criminals who are online.Because there's no regulatory body. There's anonymity. Just really a hotbed for a crime.Right. You've like - we've talked about the Silk Road before.Emm. Dark web.Yeah. Using the dark web that are connected to buy and sell goods. All those goods are sold or bought with cryptocurrencies.Because it's much harder to track and to trace.Yeah. It's nowadays the markets are trying to get people to have their name connected to their wallet, but not every market requires that.And so, there is a bunch of people out there that have cryptocurrencies that have just a wallet with no name attached to it.Yeah. Because that was the original aim, that was the original meaning of cryptocurrency, right? They don't want a centralized authority to control all these money transfers. Would there be a lot of money laundering in cryptocurrency?Yeah. Like cryptocurrency, just in like 2021 alone, there was something like $8.6 billion of money laundered using cryptocurrency. That's not even the beginning, like every year that happens, there is other issues involved with cryptocurrency. When you have so much crypto, you can actually use that to affect or inflate the market. You have people that have large sums of cryptocurrency, not only are they using it to launder money, but they are actually able to increase the value of the currency they have, by just selling it to each other for the same amount of money, which increases the amount of trades, which makes people think that it's worth more, and then people buy it for more.Oh, okay. I think I've heard of this. This is called wash trades, right?Right. It happens on the stock market too, gold markets, but it's rampant and in some markets with like cryptocurrency.Yeah. So, it's the whole idea is I have some cryptocurrency, I just sell it to you, you sell it back to me, I sell it to you, you sell it back to me. And so, by doing that we're trying to make it seem that large amount of this cryptocurrency is traded on the market, therefore inflating the value of it.Right.I think the other problem with cryptocurrency is a lot of people obviously use it for speculation. So, like really really - like gambling.Right. Just like buying stock, you want the value to go up. People are investing money in the cryptocurrencies. And when you see like the increase in like the value of Bitcoin over the years, went from something that was worth pennies to being worth thousands of dollars. I think it's worth $30,000 now, and it’s worth $60,000 I think at the beginning of the year something around there.And so, people can take a small investment and make their investment increase 10 times or maybe even a hundred times their original investment.It's a market for gamblers. However, like we talked about last time, most of these cryptocurrency, they do not really have the staying power. They will not be able to really maintain that high value over long term or keep growing. It's very volatile to go up and down fluctuate wildly. Mhm. Yeah, when we look at just like we mentioned Dogecoin earlier, but you could have like five Dogecoin for a penny in 2020. But ...

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Hi, everyone. And welcome back to geek time. Hi, Brad. Hi, Lulu. So what is our topic for today?We're gonna be talking about cryptocurrency. We kind of talked about NFTs before. And NFTs kind of share a basic background with cryptocurrency, but we haven't really gotten into cryptocurrency before. So I think this is where we can kind of get into it. Yeah. This is where everything started basically. First of all, cryptocurrency在中文叫加密货币. I think many people think of cryptocurrency, they think of Bitcoin 比特币 or even Dogecoin 狗狗币. But what exactly is cryptocurrency?Oh, cryptocurrency is just a currency that doesn't have a central government or authority controlling it. So when you have your dollar, your Renminbi, someone had to print that or control the amount of it. And rather than that, It’s usually the central bank, isn't it?Like the central bank. But rather than that, this is something that's online. And there's like a digital ledger that has a list of everyone who has bought or sold the currency. And so they know who has what and this can be like anonymous. And that's why a lot of people really wanted it. But nowadays a lot of the exchanges are kind of starting to collect your personal data for tax purposes and things like that. I see. so let me slow this down a little bit. There's no central authority. 一般来说我们生活中接触的货币, 不管是人民币或者说美金日元, 它都是由central bank一般都是央行来发行的, but cryptocurrency essentially there is no authority, no central authority, no government involved, and no regulatory bodies, 没有这种监管的机构. So It's just everything stored in a ledger. You said像一个账本, a digital ledger. Right.And some people can be anonymous. They can - you don't know who they are. They're just an account number, but others might have to register. They might have to have their personal data there. Yeah, so oftentimes if you're looking at the blockchain, you may not be able to know who the person is. But if you go to like, for example, the government will know who this person is because they've signed up for an exchange and that exchange has tied their account number to their nameI see and you mentioned blockchain. This was one of the hottest buzzwords a few years back, blockchain, 区块链. Till this day I still don't know exactly what blockchain is, but I know this is the technology behind cryptocurrency, right? Blockchain made cryptocurrency possible. Yeah, it is basically just all the data. Blockchain is the ledger. You have to decrypt and encrypt all the data. So whenever someone buys or sells something using the cryptocurrency or whenever cryptocurrency is traded, it has to go through authorization and they have to run the blockchain. In order to do this, they're using hundreds of computers or thousands of computers and they go through a process that's referred to as mining. So sounds you're like mining for gold. And essentially, that's what you're doing by using your computer to help the blockchain process. You're going to get some sort of payment. Let me stop you there. So mining here就是挖矿. It's like you are mining for gold or mining for diamonds. And this is a way to make money in this cryptocurrency world?Yeah. because rather than have - like a government doing all the mining or regulation, everyone is pitching in to do the regulation or to do the mining to move the data or to move the currency from one person to another. Oh, I see it's like a community thing almost. I've heard of people doing the mining, 其实我自己朋友圈里面也有人去参与这种cryptocurrency的挖矿.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Once upon a time, in the medieval city of Coventry in England, there lived a kind and compassionate woman named Lady Godiva. She was the wife of Lord Leofric, a powerful and wealthy nobleman. Lady Godiva was known for her generosity and love for the people of Coventry, but her husband, Lord Leofric, was a stern ruler who declared heavy taxes on the citizens.The people of Coventry suffered under the burden of these taxes, and their pleas to reduce taxes were ignored by the greedy ruler. Lady Godiva, however, felt sorry for all the struggles of the common people. Lady Godiva argued and argued with her husband from dawn to night, trying to persuade him to reduce taxes for the people of Coventry. Lady Godiva thought of new ways to raise money and even said she would write to the king. Unfortunately, Lord Leofric was stubborn and refused to reduce taxes.In the end, Lady Godiva lost her patience and she made a bold and strange proposal to her husband. She said that she would ride through the streets of Coventry, completely naked, if he would reduce taxes and help end the suffering of the people. Lord Leofric was shocked that she would even suggest this but eventually agreed to her terms. Leofric knew how shy his wife was so he was confident that she would never go through with riding naked through the city. The people of Coventry soon heard about Lady Godiva's promise which spread like wildfire through the city. The citizens were grateful for any hope of relief from their taxes and they waited for the day of her ride. Lady Godiva, determined to fulfill her promise and alleviate the suffering of the people, prepared for the ride.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~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. Let me propose a topic today.Okay.You know, all my time dealing with you.Thank you.And other British people in general.Yeah.Again, I’m not trying to stereotype. And with all due respect.Okay.I do feel like British people have this tendency to be quite sarcastic in their speech. Emm, would you agree?I would say yes, to a certain extent.对。就是，英国人说话的时候很喜欢反讽,就很喜欢说一些反话。安澜，你知道中文里管这个叫什么吗？不是阴阳吗？对，就是，你还知道阴阳啊，这个不错。我们有时候开玩笑就说：“老阴阳人了”。Really.See， there we go.Okay.You can't even control it. So, I thought in today's episode, let us do a few phrases that British people would usually say, but they don't mean what they seem to mean.Okay.I think we did something quite similar in one of our live streaming episodes.Yeah. We actually did an entire life streaming like a pop quiz thing of you quizzing me on all these read between the lines, the hidden meaning of British sarcasm. Ok.So, today we give this quiz to you.So, see if you can understand the hidden meaning behind the sarcasm.So, let's begin.Okay.Well. Let's start, first of all, with requests. Now we all know that British people they tend to make requests very very overly polite. So, …Like this “could you…I was wondering if you could…”Would you most awfully be able, you know, that type of thing, really really exaggerated. So, if your boss says to you “could you do this for me when you have a minute?”What does that mean？Could you do this for me when you have a minute？Although it sounds polite, what do you think it means？Three, two, one? I think it actually means “Do it now.” Yes.When someone says to you in English, when you have a minute, the implication is that it's only gonna take you a minute you need to do it now.Emm, I see. The request is a bit of a tricky one. Because sometimes people might actually be very polite in this situation or they're being polite. But it could also be they are just trying to hide what they truly mean behind the politeness. Exactly.We would also use it if we try to make a point that this person is probably not the best at time management.Mhm. I remember there's also a lot of sarcasm around, not sarcasm, but hidden meaning about good or bad when you say is good or quite good, it's not good or what was that about？For example, what does it mean if I say “ it's quite good”?It's quite good. I think when you say it's quite good, that means it's not really that good?Actually, means very good.Then why can't you just say it's very good？Well. We just don't like to say something is very, we don't like to use the word very. Because it's, it's a bit too strong.Okay. So, if you hear very from a British person, chances are they are being sarcastic.Yeah.Yeah. Okay. You also say “not bad”, right？Yeah, that film’s not bad, that's generally means also good.嗯，跟中文的“不错”差不多 Yeah, a little bit, but “不错” normally means it's very good, while in English is normally means it's good. It's not too exaggerated.I keep hearing you say things like not too bad actually.So, if I ask “how was your day, 安澜, and you say "not too bad actually". What does that mean？

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Hi, everyone. And welcome back to one of your favorite segments, The Sound of Musicals. 欢迎回来【曲外之音】. Hi, Oliver. Hello, everyone, hello, Lulu. So we're gonna continue with Mamma Mia, the jukebox musical.Yeah. one of… maybe the first or one of the first jukebox musicals I can think of anyway, yeah.There's so many more now. They are everywhere. There seems to be one every few years somebody changes or adds the music from a popular band or singer and they're everywhere. Yeah. Okay. So, in the previous episode, we were talking about the background. We also walked everyone through the story, which is a fun light-hearted story really, they were lots of like little twists, little plots, but the whole idea is pretty simple. Right? It's just a girl who is about to get married. She wants to find out who her father is. And then the whole story unravels. So Oliver, what do you think are some of the themes in this particular story or in the musical? Well. I'm gonna be honest, I've watched it a few times and I struggle to see any major themes if I'm being quite honest, it feels too light-hearted to have anything really deeper than that. On the surface. It just like, it's just a feel good, happy ending musical. Yeah. It feels like something you go out, you forget about the world for a little bit, and not really think about any major issues or anything life important. But interestingly, there are some deeper or bigger themes hidden underneath all these song and dance. First of all, surprisingly is feminism. Really, feminism.Think about the entire setting, think about the main character is a girl. And the main relationship is actually the relationship between her and her mother, and how they had misunderstandings, and then eventually they reconciliated. And also, the mom is a single mother, although we talk about who was she with, but the fact is she wasn't like so hopelessly in love or groveling at any of these men's feet. She was enjoying her life. She was enjoying her friendship with her best friends. They're all women. If you think about it, it’s a huge group of women, it's like a support group almost. That's true. I do remember the songs where they were singing and dancing and enjoying themselves and talking about the worries and everything together and doesn't Donna, the mother, doesn't she own the tavern on the island. Exactly. Where they all are. Yes, yes, there's no men involved there. It's all female owners and management and such. Yeah.Yeah, and there's nothing like this whole toxic competition between women. It's more like they're very supportive of one another, if you think about it to have a kid out of wedlock, not knowing who the father is even nowadays is still problematic. Right? So back in the days, there was probably more social stigma or supposed to be more social stigma. Yet with the support of her friends, nobody was, for lack of a better word, slut shaming her. No, you don't get that feeling at all throughout the show. You're right. Yeah, there was nothing... There's confusion over who the father is, but there's no judgment on anyone, which is quite nice. Yeah. That's good. Yeah.And the other thing is, the only one that actually judged her a little bit was her daughter. Her daughter originally was saying that “no, I don't want to be like you. When I have a kid, I want to know who the father is. I don't want to be like you”. But eventually they also reconciliated. And the mom, Donna, the character is not just, you know, when you see single mother character, the stereotypical single mother is always like toiling away, suffering, being very lonely, being very just like hard done by that sort of imagery. However, in this single parent household, they enjoy songs and dance and love and sunshine, happiness. I think that is also like a more of a positive take on what a single parent household could be.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Jack saw that the giant was asleep, he crept out of the box. Suddenly, he caught up the hen, ran out of the room, opened the door of the castle, which the giant had left open, and descended the beanstalk as fast as he could.His mother was glad to see him again, and surprised at seeing the hen, which laid them three gold eggs every day. Jack’s mother took them to the next town and sold them, and soon became extremely rich.Some time afterwards, Jack made another journey up the beanstalk to the giant’s castle; but first he dyed his hair and disguised himself. The old giantess did not recognise him, and dragged him in as she had done before to eat him; but once more she heard her husband coming and hid him in the box, not thinking that it was the same boy who had stolen the hen. She put him into the same box, and told him stay there, or the giant would eat him.Then the giant came in, saying:“Fee, fa, fie, fo, fum,I smell the breath of an Englishman.”“Oh!” said his wife, “it is only the farmer, who has just been here. We cannot spare him for your dinner.”Then the giant sat down, and when he had eaten half an ox, he told his wife to bring his moneybags to him. She instantly went and fetched two large bags full of gold; and then left him to go about her usual housework.The Ogre counted out the gold twice, and then put it into the bags and tied them up. In a few minutes, Jack heard him snore. He escaped the box, seized the bags, and hurrying out of the castle, safely carried them home.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Hi everyone, and welcome back to one of your favorite segments, The Sound of Musicals. 欢迎回来大家最喜欢的板块之一【曲外之音】. And it has been a long time, Oliver. Hello, it has been a very long time, yes. But I'm very happy to be back. It's nice to be back. So what is the first musical we're gonna talk about now that you're back？I thought because it's been such a long time, maybe you would like to choose something for today. Okay. I was hoping you would ask that. Before I say the name of the musical, I want you to listen to this music. (Music) Does it sound familiar to you？It does. I think I recognize the band who made those songs. Okay, so you know which musical we're gonna talk about today. I can take a very good guess, yes.And it is ?I’m guessing it's going to be Mamma Mia, the musical made around the music of ABBA, the songs we just heard. Yeah, I mean, I sort of got the feeling that Mamma Mia wouldn't be your top picks. It's not in my top ten, no.Yeah, because it's so lighthearted. It's such a fun musical and you like the heavier stuff like you want it miserable instead of lighthearted. It is more my style is the heavier hitting musicals with deeper messages, but I do enjoy a nice, lighthearted musical as well sometimes. There's a place for them, definitely there is .Yeah, I mean musical theater is supposed to be more lighthearted, right? Especially compared to things like opera.Oh, definitely so. Compared to opera and the standard plays, in many cases, musicals are the the lighthearted, forget the world for one evening and jump into a story with good music. You can dance and sing to later, things like that, musicals are a good escape. Okay, so Oliver, since you know a lot about musicals, even the ones that you don't particularly favor, can you give us a little bit of the background like when was the premiere and just a general background?Okay, yeah. So the musical first of all, it came out in 1999 in London. So that was when it premiered in London. And a year later in 2000, it made the trip over to the US, it has been all around the world since then. It is popular in many places, more than 50 countries and it's been on all of the continents. So it's a very, very popular musical. Yeah. It is very popular and has been on Broadway in West End, in London for so many years. So this musical is called a jukebox musical点唱机音乐剧jukebox is, you know the olden days when you go to a bar there is like a jukebox where you can put in a coin and you can choose the music you wanted to play. So why is it called jukebox musical?It's actually a really popular thing nowadays. Lots of bands are getting their own musicals. ABBA was one of the first, but since then there have been lots of them. They're called jukebox musicals because they use music that wasn't designed for the musical. It was released by a band. You could buy it in a shop or nowadays you can download it and listen to it online, but it's not connected to the musical. People have used that and made the musical around it, rather than the other way, which is more common. Yeah, it's basically, the traditional musicals, they are completely like original songs. They were written for this particular musical. But a jukebox musical is, first of all, there is a very popular singer or very popular band. And then because their albums or their songs are so popular, people... the producers decided to make a whole musical based on their existing music. That's exactly yeah. They're kind of using the popularity of the music that's already there to create a musical. So they make a story to fit the music rather than in the traditional way they make the music to fit the story. So it's kind of a reverse, but it does mean they're really popular with audiences because everybody knows the songs, everybody can sing along. So they're really popular.Especially if you're a fan of the band or the singer. Definitely yeah.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ 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. So 安澜, one of the other episodes we talked about British people being sarcastic usually saying words with a hidden meaning. Oh, yeah. But I've noticed another quality of British people… Okay. which I see again in you a lot. Don't worry, It's a good thing! The understatement, so like the modesty, 英国人很喜欢自谦, 甚至是自我嘲讽. 安澜is a typical example. So if one day he's done something great, if he has made some sort of achievement, if I say congratulations, that's such a job well done. 安澜would give me some joke, some self-deprecating humor就是那种自嘲或者自我贬损的这种幽默. And that I've come to know that is not just you, that is actually a quality of British people. Yeah, I would say British people like making jokes about themselves. Even as a country when we display our country or we present our country to the rest of the world, we also still use lots of self-deprecating humor even though it was years ago now. But I think one of the best examples is the Olympics that were held in London over 10 years ago and the opening and closing ceremonies. It was filled with jokes. It was filled with jokes about England, and it was filled with jokes about the UK. I think this is something cross-culturally, it's quite difficult to understand, especially for Chinese because we focus a lot on national pride. Yeah, we can complain about our country, but it's rather unthinkable for a lot of people to make fun of ourselves in that way. Again, this is no judgment not saying which side is good or bad. But I've really noticed in the UK this ability to laugh at yourself and not to take yourself too seriously. That's true. I would say British people we like to laugh at ourselves, we don't really take ourselves too seriously. And it seems as a good thing. It's not seen as a negative. It doesn't mean that we have low self-esteem. Is the country, isn't it？Is the country. It's our culture where being seen as modest and humorous are seen as positive traits. They're seen as virtues.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Once upon a time there was a poor widow who lived in a little cottage with her only son Jack.Jack was a thoughtless boy, but very kind-hearted and affectionate. There had been a hard winter, and after it the poor woman was very ill. Jack was unemployed and they gradually grew dreadfully poor. The widow saw that there was no way to stop Jack and herself from starving. They had to sell the only thing that they had left - their cow; so one morning she said to her son,“I am too weak to go myself, Jack, so you must take the cow to market for me, and sell her.”Jack liked going to market very much; but as he was on the way, he met a butcher who had some very large, green beans in his hand. Jack stopped to look at them, and the butcher told the boy that they were very valuable, and persuaded him to sell the cow for those beans! And Jack was so silly that he agreed to give his cow for some worthless beans.When he brought them home to his mother instead of the money she expected for her nice cow, she was furious and upset, shouting at Jack for his stupidity. He was very sorry; but, he said, he might as well make the best of his bargain, so he put the seed-beans into the ground close to the cottage. After he planted the beans, Jack went to bed.The next morning when he got up, he found that the beans had grown, till the bean stalks had reached the sky and Jack couldn’t even see the top of the bean stalk. Greatly surprised, Jack called his mother, and they both gazed in amazement at the beanstalk, which was not only very high, but was thick enough to bear Jack’s weight.“I wonder where it goes?” said Jack to his mother; “I think I will climb up and see.”His mother didn’t want him to climb such a dangerous height, but Jack managed to persuade her to allow him to start climbing it. He knew that there must be something wonderful in the beanstalk.Jack instantly began to climb, and went up and up on the ladder-like bean till everything he had left behind him, the cottage, the village, and even the tall church tower, looked tiny, and still he did not see the top of the bean stalk.Jack felt a little tired, and thought for a moment that he would go back again; but he was so curious that he didn’t want to give up. So after resting for a moment he went on, and at last reached the top of the bean, and found himself in a beautiful country, surrounded by trees; and not far from the place where he had got off the beanstalk was a fine and strong castle.Jack was surprised that he had never heard of or seen this castle before and was thinking who could possibly live there.While Jack was standing looking at the castle, a very strange-looking woman came out of the wood and walked towards him.Jack took off his hat to the old lady, and she said, pointing to the castle,“Boy, that castle belongs to you. A wicked giant killed your father, and took it from your mother; you must win it back from the monster who now has it.”As she stopped speaking, she suddenly disappeared, and of course Jack knew she was a fairy.He was surprised; however, he walked up to the castle door and knocked, and an old giantess came out. She did not wait until he spoke, but pulled him in at once, for she ...

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Welcome back to Geek Time advanced. Welcome, Lulu. Hi, Brad.How's it going?We were talking about IoT devices in the basic episode. We're gonna continue that and we're gonna talk a little bit about cars as IoT devices. Em, in the previous episode, in the basic one, we were talking about mostly about these smart home devices like we were joking about our fridge talking smack about us behind our backs, and all these you said like thermostat setting or setter or like smart locks. But cars that seems like, I don't know, it seems pretty big as an IoT right? It has a lot of built ins.YEAH. We think about a car today. They already have a lot of sensors already built in. They have the thermostat, they have things related to GPS, they have light sensors and so when it gets dark outside, your front lights will automatically turn on.So there are already tons of IoT devices in the car. However, our future cars will not just have IoT devices, but will be in a sense A IoT device themselves when we go to more like self driving cars.Self driving cars, those cars that you don't have to drive, right? It just drives on its own.Right,Let me get this straight. That means our car will be if we see all of these devices in the internet of things or on the internet of things, if we see them as dots, in the future these cars our car will be one dot containing lots of bells and whistles Yeah, because like all the cars will be interacting with each other. They are going to connect probably to a network of some sort. And they are going to know the position of other cars as those cars are moving around so that the cars can kind of avoid, but it can also be a way to manage the traffic system. Because if there's a network that all the cars are connected to, and then the traffic lights are connected to those, they don't have to follow a regular schedule. They can see ok, if we turn this light red now then the cars that are going can move through and then we can change this light to be green. And It'll help the flow of traffic in the long run. Wow, that kind of blows my mind basically in the future when everyone switches to self driving cars, every car is connected to the internet of things. That basically means we'll be in an almost automated ultra smart system or sort of like transportation infrastructure, then we no longer have to worry about things like traffic jam, congestion collision any of that.Yeah, we can avoid a lot of it. I mean there are still going to be some of those things. There will be accidents, there will be collisions from time to time. No system is perfect, but it will definitely be reduced quite a bit. (em) Now there is this idea of cloud computing everything these days is on the cloud, as they say. Now we're going to possibly move into a new field called Fog computing .Hang on a minute, so I haven't even figured out fully how cloud computing works now. People are now the old technology is moving on towards fog computing like 雾计算,从云计算到雾计算 . What is fog computing?Like we have cloud computing like data is stored on the network rather than on your computer, so you can access that data anywhere. (yeah) But fog computing is where they eliminate the need for the internet where we don't have to even go on the internet. So all the devices themselves in one area create their own network.And so It's kind of like a fog in one area. There's lots of cars over here and they all have their own network and so they kind of referred to that as a fog rather than being like in the cloud on the internet. It's a fog that's outside of the internet. They're all kind of just working together.So instead of controlling every car with an internet based or cloud based system, now they get rid of the cloud and just cars will connect with one another.Right. So it'll be less centralized, it'll be decentralized from a network. Things can still connect to a network. But in a situ

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hi everyone, and welcome back to Geek Time. 欢迎回来《极客时间》. Hi, Brad.Hey Lulu, how's it going? Yeah, it's good, it’s good. So what are we gonna talk about today? Today we're gonna be talking about the internet of things or IoT.The internet…The IoT中文叫做物联网。internet是互联网，IoT, internet of things 是物，就是物件的物，物联网. I mean, I have seen the definition somewhere and it seems to be referring to all the things are connected rather than the computers. Could you walk us through the basic definition of IoT?So, basically, IoT is just a group of things that are interconnected. They can be on the internet or through their own network, but it's not computers. It's like devices that have sensors in them and software that they used to communicate. And so it might be a button somewhere that you push and it communicates with something, or it might be a temperature sensor that we used to find out the weather in our smartphones. So, is it like one of those, for example, if I've got like a smart fridge refrigerator, that can be part of IoT?Right. Yeah. That's one of those IoT devices. Emm. And IoT means they are actually able to connect with each other and what communicate?Yeah. They basically they inter communicate on their own. When we use the internet, we go online and we look up Information, but an IoT device connects to the internet or through another network, and sends Information to a hub or to another device directly, without any human interaction necessarily. Okay, starts to sound a bit creepy. So my refrigerator can be sending things about my home to another refrigerator, for example, your refrigerator?Well. It's not just gonna go talk to another refrigerator. However, you know you have your phone, and you probably have an APP on your phone that you can use to connect to the refrigerator, and then look at what's inside of your refrigerator or maybe your refrigerator will send you some Information saying “you only have two eggs”, you might want to order two more or more.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hello, everyone. And welcome back to America Under the Microscope. Hi, Lulu. Hi, James.This is the advanced episode for sex education.So we're gonna continue our talk about sex education we were doing in the basic episode, and I'd like to jump into some of the debates that Americans have on this topic, en...which there are many.I can imagine. The other day I actually watched a video on social media. I think the teacher was teaching, I don't know like something related to LGBTQ and then there was an angry parent storming into the classroom and tried to rip off the pride flag or something like that.YEAH. So that is actually one of the big debates right now. So it isn't really like a subject to debate whether sex that should be taught. But the content of the lessons is a debate yeah. because some parents all they want is the basic biology. It's like ovum, testis, sperm, fertilizers and egg and so on and so forth and really dry science.en. And some are on the opposite end of the spectrum and they want to talk about everything from sexual orientation to gender identity, whatnot. And just like every kind of debate you can't always find, people can't always find the middle ground here.Yeah, but would you consider this I'm not gonna ask you about your personal opinion on this, but I am just going to ask, would you consider gender identity part of this sex education thing? because to me gender is kind of a different...basically it’s a whole different topic.I honestly would put it in a separate unit, completely separate part of the curriculum. It's like part of the social emotional learning because it doesn't necessarily need to be in line with sexual education because sex ed is at least in my mind it is the actual act of partake in sexual relationships. It doesn't really matter who was two adults, then you need to know about how to do it in a responsible safe way. And gender identity, that's an identity lesson and I think that should actually be a separate lesson from sex ed. Yeah. so this point of view, it was like these debates and controversies, they're mostly about what should be included in sex education.Yeah. It's very much that and people's own personal beliefs, their own of whether they're more conservative in these kind of situations are not really do affect what gets done in the classroom. And since it's part of (you know ) the curriculum, this means it's also subject to the board of education and they get to also decide what is and is not included.Yeah, and then it's the protests and then it’s the... more debates and then it’s the media coverage, the whole shebang.AH. American media coverage. It is an interesting watch.But you know that I think who is going to be really conflicted and also be put in a dilemma. I think are the teachers, the educators because they will have to teach the curriculum. But they have to teach it in a way that is non offensive to every single parent otherwise to get into trouble.So they do the impossible, got it.Yeah.If I could teach a way to make every single parent happy that would make me the best teacher on the planet.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hi, everyone. And welcome back to America Under the Microscope. 欢迎回来【闲话美国】. Hi, James. Hi Lulu. Hi, everyone. It has been sometimes since last time we’ve spoke. So how's the new semester treating you？It’s been busy , dealing with teenagers is a handful. Actually I thought today we can talk about education-related topic. Cool. In fact the other day, I was talking to some of my students. I said what kind of subjects you did in school, and apart from the the major subjects, the academic subjects, we were talking about health education, specifically sex education. Really?Yeah.Usually that's a topic I find many students don't want to talk about.Well. I mean, I think many of my students they were saying that they wish they had more of a comprehensive sex education when they were in school. Because there wasn’t any when they were growing up. Yeah. So I thought let's talk about that. A little bit of a risky topic is talk about on this platform, but I thought it's a ,nonetheless, it is an essential element of education. Right？I agree it's very important. So first of all, let's talk about your own experience when you were in school, did you get any like formal sex education？Yes I did have ‘sex and health education’ what a lot of schools call it. And I had it at all three levels from primary school, middle school and high school. Oh, So that's always in the curriculum, 就是一直在课程设置里面的是吧？Yes, and most public schools it very much is part of the curriculum. And let me guess based on all these other topics we talked about, it's not the same across the country. Every state has their own standards. That should be a mean for this program. It's not the same everywhere in America. No. A lot of people if they have never been to America, if they were just like listening to social media, whatever, people have this general perception of Americans are very, very open-minded when it comes to sexuality, for example, I don't think that's true. Is it?Not really ,to be honest, most Americans tend to be kind of conservative about it. Don't trust what you see in the media. Most people kind of keep to themselves about that kind of stuff. So what is like the sort of general family attitudes, like parents attitude? Are they happy that it's included or...? Well, I've read recently in a poll from planned parenthood, which is a big nonprofit organization that deals with sex education and pregnancy, that most parents are supportive of these programs in schools. And they want the schools to teach the children. The key factors which are involved are sexuality and health because it's part of being human and it's part of growing up. Em... Hang on a minute. You mentioned planned parenthood. Yes, in English there is something called like Family Planning, right? So It's kind of like has to do with when you want to get pregnant when you want to have babies. Is that true? 就有点计划生育就是跟我们的计划生育不是一样的意思, but it sort of is about planning when do you have kids?It's along those same lines, but a lot of planned parenthood, what they do is they also do education about sexuality, sexual health, sexually transmitted infections and prevention and all these things. So it's not like necessarily about family planning. But when to have children. Em....try to avoid. Understanding what leads to children. And also to sort of like prevent unwanted pregnancy.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hello everyone, and welcome to bedtime stories with 安澜. In this segment, I'm going to be telling you some famous stories from Britain and many other countries. So get comfortable and let me take you on a journey far away, The Sword in the Stone. Long ago in England, a wise and good king ruled the land. His name was King Uther. Times were good and the people lived well. King Uther wanted a magician in his court. And so he chose the famous Merlin, Merlin the Magician. Merlin could see into the future. And he knew those good days were not going to last. King Uther and the Queen Guinevere had a child, a baby son. At a party in the castle for the royal birth, Merlin the Magician whispered into the King’s ear. He said, “Your Majesty, there is something you must know. Soon there will be lots of disasters in the country. Your child is in great danger. Let me take the baby far away. I will be sure he stays safe.” “Merlin!” said the King in surprise. “You are a great magician. And you are my friend. But there is no way we would let you take our child away!” Sadly, soon after the child’s birth the Queen died. Not long after, King Uther was killed in battle. That very night, Merlin came into the castle and took the child. The next morning, the royal nurse went into the nursery but all she found was an empty crib! The terrified nurse, the nervous nobles and servants looked everywhere. But the baby was gone! For years, there was no king on the throne. No king to decide the laws. Men of high rank fought each other to be king. Darkness fell over the land. Robbers and murderers ruled the streets of London. Evil men broke into houses and took what they wanted. Travelers on the roads were attacked and robbed. The people of England lived in fear. Yet far away, there was a quiet place. A good knight, Sir Ector, lived peacefully with his two sons. His first son was named Kay. His younger son Arthur had been adopted as a baby. Years before, a stranger had come to Sir Ector with a baby. He asked if Sir Ector would raise the child. The old knight took the baby in his arms. He was glad for a second child, which he named Arthur. Sir Ector raised the child as his own. When Arthur was ten years old, the same stranger returned to Sir Ector’s home. He could read and write, and so Sir Ector hired him to teach his two sons. Kay could not sit still for lessons and he stopped coming. But Arthur listened with wide eyes. He learned everything. That stranger was none other than Merlin the Magician! At the end of each day when Arthur finished his chores, that was time for the lessons. Merlin would sit with Arthur for hours and teach him about the world. Arthur was a thin lad, not strong like his big brother Kay. Merlin said not to worry about that. He said what mattered most was to have a heart that was big and strong. Merlin saw how the birds, foxes and deer followed Arthur. He could see that the boy had a very big and strong heart. By the time Arthur was 16, his brother Kay had become a knight. He was now called Sir Kay. Arthur became his brother’s squire, looking after his weapons and serving Sir Kay when he needed to. He kept great care of his brother’s clothes and helmet, his spears and lances. One day at lesson time, Merlin looked away. He stood up.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ So far we have been focusing on the basics, mostly the fun on the good side. But let's talk about the mystic. Is it actually a secret society? I was doing a bit of research before this episode and I found this really good quote from one of the lead in masons and I think it's really true. We are not a secret society or a society with secrets, but we are a private society. 就是我们没有什么不可告人的秘密, 但是我们是一个private society, 我们是一个那种私人会所的感觉. Exactly.You have to be the selected for you to join.Yeah. Some of the rituals their secret is to non-masons, but masons don't really hide their membership, and the actual main hall in London Freemasons Hall is open to the public. They have their own museum. Oh, Yes, I think I have read somewhere. It’s in the center of London. 有一个Freemasons Hall就是共济会的一个博物馆, 大家感兴趣在伦敦的话可以去看一下. Yeah. And it's a really nice museum. They got a really nice library and it's all completely free. My dad actually used to work there as a guide and working in the library. He always used to say you used to get these people that walking from the street and they were like really nervous or embarrassed. They would actually ask, are we allowed to come in? Of course. I'll give you a guide tour. Because they thought this is like all behind closed doors this kind of deal. Exactly. Yeah.Because when you think of a secret society, you do think a lot about the seediness. You know the things that all the seedy secrets that they cannot share. You said there are secret rituals. And I've heard about like a secret handshake, like you mentioned before. Is it a dumb question to ask what is that secret handshake? It is a dumb question.Is it truly that secret that nobody knows? I have kind of had someone use a secret handshake on me, and to be honesty you can't really tell but I don't really know what it is myself. But this is the part I don't really understand, if masons don't hide their membership. Couldn't they have just asked are you a mason as well? Why would they have to use the secret handshake? Well, a lot of them don't so much anymore. Again, it's all about tradition, it's about ritual. And this is one thing that we love in Britain is tradition. We love rituals even when they don't really make much sense anymore. Yeah, just look at all these royal rituals.Exactly. You mentioned about conspiracy theories and some of them might absolutely love them, they’re brilliant, So the first one is Freemasons secretly control the world. Oh yeah, this is a very very famous well-known conspiracy theory. 一个很主流的阴谋论就是说，像Freemasons or I don't know like there are other similar organizations. They are the ones behind. They are the puppet masters. Exactly. And I guess I can somewhat understand where this comes from because in the past, in the 19th century, in particular, many influential people were masons such as judges, politicians. Now people join lodges based on their physical location and also because of their interest. So, if you're gonna get a bunch of politicians meeting... People start to talk. People start to talk. If you get a bunch of judges and lawyers and barristers all gathering together every week, people start to talk. I do have a question though, now again, this has to do with the whole class thing. Do you think when people hear freemasonry, they think of a certain... it is attaching to a certain class, for example, middle class or working class or…Oh, Yeah. It's kind of upper class, middle class, but nowadays freemasonry is open to everyone. There is that idea that it's only kind of the elites that are Freemasons. But nowadays that's not the case.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ 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. So, What kind of topic are we gonna talk about today? Well, Today I thought we talk about something a bit mysterious. Woo, Is it about folklore? No. OK. I thought today we'll talk about what is commonly known as a secret society. 神秘的组织，I think I talked about this topic with Brad before about secret societies in the world and conspiracy theories. If you're talking about the UK let me guess you're gonna talk about Freemasons. That's right. We're gonna talk a little bit about freemasonry. Freemasonry, Freemasons叫共济会. It's probably one of the most well known secret society. I know it sounds really contradictory.Oh, yeah. Exactly is one of the most famous secret societies in the world. Again, because it can be potentially sensitive. We're not siding with any opinions, we’re simply being informative.Exactly.Because it is something that every British person knows no matter how they feel about it. Always something that everyone feels they knows, but actually there's a lot of misunderstanding about Freemasonry. Em. Okay. So let's start with the very basic, I think our audience probably don't know anything about this society. Well, first of all, I should start by saying I do know a bit about Freemasonry because my dad is a free mason. OK, All right. Are you allowed to tell me?Well, I have to kill you afterwards, but no, I'm absolutely fine to tell you. Em, OK.So, Freemasonry is based on the traditions of medieval stonemasons. Yeah, actually I was gonna say although Freemasons is translated into 共济会, but mason is a stone cutter, a stone craftsman就是石匠, 对吧? Stonemasons是石匠的意思. Yep, exactly. So stonemasons were the ones who built cathedrals and castles and to do this, they traveled around the country. Now being a stonemason was a very highly skilled job. Em, I would imagine so.And obviously, back then people couldn't read and write, they had no ID cards.So, to show that they were a qualified and professional stonemason, they used signs and words to show who they were. I think we definitely have similar things in China or we had similar things in China, the stonemasons, also carpenters. They have their signs, their own systems.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Hello again欢迎来到Happy Hour英文小酒馆。关注公众号璐璐的英文小酒馆，加入我们的酒馆社群，邂逅更精彩更广阔的世界。Hi everyone, and welcome back to Britain Under the Microscope, Halloween Special, 欢迎回来《闲话英伦·万圣节特辑》。Hello，安澜。 Hello everyone. Hello and Happy Halloween. Basically, one of my favorite festivals, last year we were doing superstition in the UK, so what we're gonna talk about today? Well, I thought for Halloween it would be nice to do something a little bit historical and also a little bit creepy. So I thought today we can talk about witches. Oh, witches 就是女巫, ok, actually I have a quite a lot of background knowledge in this. I know, so that's why I thought it would be good if we can talk about witchcraft in Britain. Do you know that in university I actually wrote a paper on Witch Hunt. Really? Yeah, always been a fascinating topic, like 安澜 was saying, it's not just a fantasy or supernatural topic, it has a lot of history behind it. First things first, when you talk about witches in British culture in British history, were they always evil? Were they always like an evil presence? Not really, no, back in medieval times, and also early, they've always been witches and a lot of them were generally seen as good. They were seen as good? So what did they actually do? Well, they were known as cunning folk. Cunning folk. Yeah, a man could be a witch back then, they would help to cure people, help the crops to grow, woman to have children. It was a type of folk belief. It's a little bit like 巫医 that sort of ideas, like witch doctor almost. Type of thing. But obviously if you read a lot of stories in the West, in Britain which they were hunted, they were seen as really, really evil. That was from around the 15th century. 15th century. Yeah. How did they turn from the cunning folk which is harmless helpful neighborhood people to this evil presence? Basically, it was caused by two Kings, so Henry the 8th actually made witchcraft a Capital Offense. Capital Offense, 就是要杀头的罪。 Yeah. But why? Because he was worried about the influence of these witches on society, it was also about the church as well, but it was actually another king, a Scottish King who then became king of England, James the First. So King James the First was someone who was really scared of witches. Yes, that's because he believed that witches were attacking his family. That paranoid? A little bit, but he was kind of educated king, so what he did was he wrote a book about finding witches. Finding witches so that they can kill them. Pretty much, and this actually started a witch hysteria when ordinary people started to believe that witches were dangerous.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Welcome back to Geek Time advanced. Welcome, Lulu. Hi, Brad. So we're gonna continue on with talking about cyber security. Remember, last time when we were finishing up, I asked a question if there are so many people who are experts in cyber security, why are the attackers still winning in a lot of the situations? Why are they still able to make the attacks successful, so to speak. Well, one thing that makes it difficult is that they are always looking for new ways. There's always new computer systems. They make a new operating system. Windows does this every like 5 years or so. And whenever they make a new operating system, there is always going to be some flaws in it.And so basically, while the defenders are out there trying to keep the system defended, the attackers or the bad people are going out there and finding things and then using those exploits to hack into the system. The defenders are always two steps behind the attackers. Can you not preempt some of these attacks if you already know, or if you already see the potential of a loophole? You can. And sometimes people will find a loophole before anyone attacks it. Sometimes they don't even know if anyone has attacked it before they find it. So it's always really difficult. There's... whenever they make a new system, they can look for all the loopholes, but they're never going to find them all. I suppose as the defending side, you have to be all encompassing, all enveloping. You have to really take care of every little detail, but as the attacker, you only need one loophole to be in. I see, so cyber security essentially is ultra important because last time we were talking about it is linked with the integrity of critical infrastructure.Right. People's livelihood, the stock exchange is all on the internet. People transfer money from bank to bank via their computers. People pay their bills nowadays via computer. Everything is online. Can I just ask like a I don't know if it's a related question, so talking about who has access to certain internet. Who has like, I don't know if it's called privilege, security clearance, how does that work?When you work for a company, basically, the idea is to give every user as limited a privilege as possible. We often call this privilege. So basically, they say okay you need access to these rooms, you need access to this data. And We're only going to give you access to those bits of data because that's what you need.And so limits the liability for the company saying that okay you don't have access to the things you don't need. If you did access those that might be a problem. So you're breaking the law. Yeah. Basically the ideas that we want to limit the accessibility to things as much as possible.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hi, everyone. And welcome back to Geek Time. 欢迎回来【极客时间】. Hi, Brad. Hey, lulu, how's going? It's being great. And Brad, I would like to propose a topic today. OkLet's talk about one of your majors, which is Cyber Security, right? Ok, good topic. 网络安全. Let's start with the basic. What is Cyber Security? I mean we can translate it. But exactly what is the security about? Is it about data? Is it about I don't know, finance? What is it about? So, cyber security is the total your security of your data and your devices. But when we think about it, right, there's you can look at it as two main ideas. You're protecting your data, whether it's your personal data or the company data or protecting critical infrastructure, companies, computers, your computer, or country's electric grids, their voting machines, their financial systems. So, it's not just data ,it’s devices as well. Okay. Am I to understand it's like several tiers, so you protect personal data, you need to protect like organizational data, like a company or organization, and you also have to protect sort of infrastructure in a country, in a community, like you said, electric grids and then voting machines, financial systems to make sure the country or the community or the region runs smoothly, operate smoothly. Right.Can I ask you just out of curiosity? What does this cyber security major fall under? What is like the big faculty or the big...? So this one is between two faculties usually, most of its under IT, like information technology. But oftentimes with cyber security, it's not just on the IT side of things. It's also on the administrative side of things. So they often will combine the two. So my focus was yeah...Like public admin. Yes, kind of. I see, and would you say it is a popular major to choose based on your observation? It's fairly popular. I think a lot of people tend to go with just more of the basic IT support. I think cyber security is a little bit more daunting for some just because they look at it and they think that's got to be really difficult, but I think it's not any more difficult necessarily than the other IT majors. So let's start with basic two more advanced security measures or settings. Obviously for most dummies, like me the first layer is password, but I know that is not really safe. Yes,when you have a network,of course you need to have a password. And then when you think about passwords, you don't want to just have numbers because then this makes it very simple to decode or decrypt your password. You add in letters and then symbols and then the more you add, the more complex it becomes, the more safe it is. But aside from passwords, a lot of times, people can or systems will use what's called a white list and what's called a blacklist. What you allow and disallow. Yes, right. A white list would just be we only allow these devices, right? And so anything that's on our white list as it is, are the only things that can enter. Or they might use a blacklist where they just say these devices can't be...can’t come onto the network. A white list is a little bit safer, but it also makes it a little bit more difficult if you want to add a new device because you have to go into the system, you have to allow that device. Yeah, unfortunately, I think a lot of people nowadays do not really have the basic awareness. I'm not even talking about the know how but the awareness of cyber security and we opt for convenience rather than total security. Then of course on top of that, we have things like the antivirus software. Most people might run one or two different ones on their systems. But if you're like, really into cyber security, we use something called sand boxing. Sand boxing? Yes. So basically you have your operating system on your computer. When you log onto your computer, you use your computer. But you can actually kind of create what's called a virtual machine.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Hi everyone, and welcome to our new segment 【It Means What?】欢迎大家回来我们的新版块【词源考古研究所】. In this segment, we’re going to explore the interesting origin of words and phrases. So 安澜, what is the word for today? Well, today I've chosen one of my favorite words in English. Let me guess, it's alcoholic. Yes. 安澜这个酒“精”啊. It is whiskey. 就是威士忌. Actually I'm not a whiskey drinker but I always wondered, that doesn't sound English that the word whiskey. No, it actually comes from a Gaelic word. Gaelic is the language from Scotland? Gaelic is a language from northern Scotland and it's completely different to English. So you wouldn't understand Gaelic. I would not understand Gaelic. Actually you can watch Gaelic programs on BBC. What's the point if you don't understand it. Exactly, and it's just so it's very, very different from English. 这个叫苏格兰盖尔语. If you are interested, you can check it out online and see how it sounds. Yes. So it comes from this Gaelic word which means “water of life”. Water of life, isn't that Aqua vitae? Oh, that's Latin. So the Gaelic is “Uisge Beatha” , so it’s Uisge and it became whiskey. 所以是苏格兰盖尔语里面的叫做 “water of life”, 生命之水. Now the reason why they called it “water of life” is that whiskey was not actually originally a drink to be enjoyed. It was a medicine. I thought it was just because they really loved drinking. No, so whiskey started to be distilled in Scotland, so you distill whiskey. You don't make whiskey. 蒸馏, distill. It's like with wine, you fermented, 如果是葡萄酒水果酒它是发酵, 然后 whisky这种烈酒很多是蒸馏distilled.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Now brings the next question. Supposedly I were a member of a trade union and they organized a strike, but I don't want to like, I don't agree and I voted not to have a strike. Then what if the strike still goes on because I'm in the minority. You would still probably have to go on strike. I have to? Yeah, because you belong to that union, if you belong to that union, you've chosen to be with them. If the majority of your union colleagues agree and think should go on a strike, then you have to join them. 明白了, 所以就是说实际上即使你不同意, 但是你们工会里大部分的人都投票同意了, 你还是得必须参加罢工. Exactly. It's a little bit like for example, if a country goes to war, if you don't agree with it, you can't exactly just say I don't agree, so I'm not gonna do anything. So that's the analog you'll be using. Yeah, I see, I see. So it's almost like a mini government type of thing. It is. The unions are designed to act as a balance against management. I see. It’s a check and balance system. Exactly. 其实是为了制衡这些employer. We know that in theory, but in practice, do they really have that much power? You said the London transport system, they have some very powerful unions. I've actually heard about this. Yeah, because quote on quote, if they don't reach a settlement, they go on prolonged strikes. They can hold London hostage because they stop running the underground. Pretty much. 整个伦敦就瘫痪了。 Exactly. And if the government or the local councils, if they continue to basically disagree with the unions or to stop negotiating, then it looks bad on the government. But I do... in real life, imagine myself as just a resident in London, if I have to commute to work, I have to take the underground, the tube every day. Oh, you probably will be very angry. I'll be very angry, but if I feel like I probably won't necessarily feel angry about the company or at the company, I probably will think all these people going on strike, they don't really have any consideration for others and they are asking for unreasonable amount, does that happen? Yeah, a lot. So people are not necessarily just other normal, just general public. They're not necessarily siding with these unions. No. In some cases, they don't side with the unions. One of the things about the transport unions is the they do actually annoy a lot of people. I would assume so.Because lots of people believe that, for example train drivers get a lot of money and some actually do. They got very good at paying conditions and when they complain about it, other people will just go, well, what are you complaining about? If you already getting way above average salary, you're still complaining because you can hold the entire city hostage. Then that's not going to be... But a strike will only work if you have the sympathy of the public. So if the public don't agree with the strike and they get angry, then the unions have less of a case and it makes the employers stronger. Okay. So eventually this will all be in the court of public opinion. Pretty much. So a good example is with the doctors and nurses. When they went on strike, they were very clear on the news about what their demands were, what they wanted. And of course people supported doctors and nurses. Yeah, of course. So lots of people were pressuring the government into siding and agreeing with the unions. I think you mentioned a very important point. You have to be very transparent, very open about what you want, what the conditions are. Yeah, for example, I remember watching news about the NHS strike, the medical workers strike. Then some of the nurses are coming out to tell their story saying how much their take home wage is every month, 每个月到手多少钱. Yeah, and we're talking about single mother working long hours getting paid above average, and it is that money having lived in London, I know that money is not enough, exactly, to support and your kids, let alone l

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Hi everyone, and welcome back to Britain under the microscope. 欢迎回来【闲话英伦】. Hello, 安澜. Hi 璐璐. Hi, everyone. So 安澜, I know that you have recently obviously also been in the UK. Yes, I have. You know when I was in the UK this time, I didn't notice because just they say it over and over again in the news, strikes, many strikes. And not just in the UK, in Europe, in general these days. Oh yeah. Certainly throughout Europe and also particularly in the UK, there are lots and lots of strikes. 所以今天咱们就要聊聊罢工这个事情. I know it's a bit sensitive. Well, it is a bit sensitive, but we can be focusing on what it actually means to strike. So we'll be focusing more on the actions. Not so much as in which side we support, but is more informative. Exactly. Okay. But first of all, why are there so many strikes in the UK in recent months? I know there always have been strikes, but it seems to be more frequent. Simply it's down to inflation. And the cost of living crisis.And the cost of living crisis. 就是生活成本的飚高, 还有通胀。We talked about this before. Yes. So there's been a massive increase in inflation, post COVID, and also post Brexit. In October 2022, our inflation went up to 11.1%. Wow, post COVID, post Brexit, you have this double whammy. 英国是既受到COVID新冠的影响, 还受到Brexit脱欧的影响. Yeah. So people are having a pretty tough time right at the moment. But it's important to note that even before COVID and even before Brexit, lots of people were having a tough time. I would say ever since 2008, 2009 with the financial crisis, there's been a lack of investment in public services. When you say public services, do you mean like infrastructure like a health care? Health care, schools, transports, that's because of austerity. What does austerity here mean? Well, austerity in this sense means that the government try to cut expenditure as much as possible.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Hello everyone, and welcome to bedtime stories with 安澜. In this segment, I'm going to be telling you some famous stories from Britain and many other countries. So get comfortable and let me take you on a journey far away, The story of Dick Whittington. Long ago, a poor little boy lived on the streets in torn and dirty clothes. He never saw or knew his parents or his birthplace. He called himself Dick Whittington. One fine day, he met a man driving a wagon who was on his way to London. Dick asked if he could join him on his journey. The kind man agreed but did not ask him to pay. Little Dick was very excited to see London and imagined that its streets were made of gold. However, to his utter disappointment, London was covered in dirt and there was no sign of gold. Dick was soon all by himself. He had gone days without food or money. He was cold and starving. He begged for food, work, and money but no one showed him any kindness. Out of exhaustion and hunger, he collapsed one day at the door of a kind merchant Mr. Fitzwarren. The cook at his place was a cruel woman who told Dick to leave or she would pour hot water on him. Mr Fitzwarren, who had just returned from the London Exchange, took pity on the boy and brought him in. He ordered his servants to provide him with food and drink and the cook to let him work in the kitchen as her helper. Just when little Whittington hoped for brighter days, the servants mocked him and the cook beat him. When the kind merchant’s daughter, Miss Alice, found out about it, she felt sorry for him and ordered everyone to be nice to Dick. Dick Whittington slept in a bed in a tiny attic room that was full of rats and mice. They troubled him enough to prevent him from having a good sleep. A gentleman once visited Mr Fitzwarren who rewarded Whittington with a penny in return for brushing his shoes. Whittington set out with that penny to buy something for himself. On the way, he saw a woman with a cat. He wanted to buy the cat from her but the price was too high. He explained his situation and said, “A penny is all I have.” The good woman allowed him to have the cat for a penny. He named her Miss Puss and hid her in his attic room. She soon got rid of all the rats and mice and helped him sleep peacefully. Soon afterwards, it was time for Mr Fitzwarren’s ship to set sail on a voyage. As per custom, the master ordered each servant to send something of their own for trade so they could possibly earn a fortune. Poor Whittington had nothing to offer but Miss Puss whom he unwillingly gave for the voyage.Dick Whittington’s troubles were far from over. The cruel cook continued beating him and laughing at him for sending his cat on the voyage. Fed up with the situation, the poor boy fled from the house. While deciding which direction to continue his journey away from London, he heard St. Mary-le-Bow church’s bells ringing.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hello everyone, and welcome back to America Under the Microscope, advanced episode. Hi Lulu. Hi James.So we're gonna continue our talk about transportation which we were talking about in the basic episode. And we want to start off this episode by talking about money.Oh, how much it costs?Yeah, because this is always our concern, isn’t it? Now, how much do you think it costs to or how much do you think Americans spend on transportation every year?When you say transportation, does this include everything like driving?Yeah, all inclusive, all inclusive.All inclusive, I don't know, maybe six, five, six thousand, it's got to be more than that. Right?Yes. It's about $10,000 a year in transportation costs. 10,000?!Yes.OK, so, what if you, like, would it cost as much if you don't drive?No, it would be a lot less, the biggest things including this are like fuel, insurance and maintenance of your car. I see. But it also includes like if you take flight or anything like this, it's quite a lot. And, if you're in the lower income levels of the society, it's a big chunk of money.That is a lot of money, $10,000 per year just on transport.Yeah, it's like I don't even think I get close to that here, but of course I don't own a car in China, so that does really lower my transportation costs.Yeah, I don't regularly drive a car, I mean I can drive, but I don't really drive in Beijing. So, I don't really know how much it costs to maintain a car to pay all of the taxes and parking. So, you guys can educate us and leave us a comment, telling us as a car owner how much you spend on transport a year. Does it sound like a major chunk of your spending?Yeah. This comes into a major issue. Because if you're trying to move up and trying to make money and you don't have a car, or you have a major accident with your car. You just lost a big chunk of your savings of trying to get it fixed or replaced. And due to our limited public transportation options in many places. There isn't an alternative if you don't have a car.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hi, everyone. And welcome back to America Under the Microscope. 欢迎回来【闲话美国】.Hi, James. Hi, LuLu. Hi, everyone. Actually I would like to propose a topic.Cool. Now around the holiday I wanna travel back to Wuhan, I was trying to get a train tickets. When I'm now traveling from Beijing to Wuhan, I almost always get the train because it's so fast. If you consider the flight takes about 2 hours and then there's a long commute to the actual airport. But the train station is also usually located center of town and the train only takes 4 hours, sometimes even a bit under 4 hours. I know I love Chinese high speed trains, so nice. So I thought let’s talk about the transport in America. I know you guys don't really have a lot of trains or like your trains are not really great. We have trains. We have a whole two high speed trains in the whole country. You have high speed train? That's news to me. How fast are they? Well, the one in the northeast that goes between Washington DC and I think up to Boston, I think it can get up to 190. Kilometers per hour. But for very limited stretches because it has many stops. There's a brand new one in Florida between Miami and Orlando and it can go 378 kilometers in 3.5 hours. OK, that is like 120, 130 per hour. Yeah. That doesn't sound very impressive. Sorry to say that. It’s not. So really, trains that I wouldn't say that you have kept up with the world in terms of development of trains. We have not. America is well behind. If you look at many European countries like France, the UK, Germany, Italy, they all have forms of high speed rail. And then if you take Japan, it's like their high speed rails are outstanding. Chinese, high speed rail is really outstanding. Yeah, there's America. It’s sad. But why is that? Because it's such a vast country why? Money. But even building airports also cost money, right? Yes, it does, but there's a few things. So it's just really expensive to build rail because it's not just about the train station. You also have to lay down the track and all that other stuff which you don't have to do for an airport. Oh, I see. So is it fair to say that when it comes to traveling cross country, most Americans won't even think of rail travel. It's not even on the radar now. Who's taking the trains then? It depends on which part of the country you’re in. If you're in the northeast. So New York city region, there are quite a bit more trains where you can usually go from like New York to Boston, New York to Washington DC, New York to Philadelphia. In that part of the country, there are quite a few trains that you can take. But if you're from where I am, there is no train station in my hometown. The closest train station is an hour drive away and the train comes once a day. And you might as well just take the plane. Yeah, it would honestly be cheaper. But air travel, I mean I've also watched a lot of videos of people complaining about air travel and it's almost like a meme. When you watch a TV shows from America, people also complain about air travel. 其实很多美剧或者美国电影里面都有很多人去吐槽美国的飞机，就航空业各种各样的，说服务也好，什么也好，基建也好，so what do you think about the air travel? Right. So air travel is the easiest way to get across the country because a lot of people always seem to forget that America is really big. It takes 5 hours to fly across the country. It's a big place, but because it's high demand and there's high competition, a lot of the airline companies have done... done things to try to remain competitive. And consumers have voted with their feet and they decided that they want cheaper tickets than having all the bells and whistles of airlines.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ The project is funded by “Top Taste Original, High Quality Products from Europe,” an European Union campaign promoting the Consortium of Abruzzo Wines and the Piave DOP Cheese Consortium. Hi everyone, and welcome back to your favorite segment Global Village. In today's episode, we have in our studio two special guests, Michele and Elliott.Michele is an old friend to the show and has appeared in a few episodes. He's currently based in Shanghai and owns a wine importing business, specializing in Italian wines. Elliot is the founder of his own wine import business as well as the owner of the popular wine bistro in Shanghai. Both are wine experts, obviously. Welcome to the show, Michele and Elliott.Hi, lulu. (Michele)Thank you. Great to be here.(Elliott)Great to talk to you again.Today we're going to be talking about Italian wines from the Abruzzo region. But first of all, can you guys give us a brief self introduction about your businesses? Let's give the opportunity to Elliot first.Hi, my name is Elliot Shay, I’ve been in the wine business off and on for about 20 years. I started my wine import company in China about 10 years ago, focusing mostly on wines from Europe, one of my specialties with Italian wines; and then a couple of years ago I started a wine bistro called Crush that aims to pair amazing wines with more American pan-Asian fusion food.Okay. It sounds fantastic, I Love sort of the fusion in food. And Michele, I know that you've introduced yourself several times on the show, but could you still briefly give us an introduction?Sure. So I'm Italian. I live in Shanghai since almost 15 years and I am in the wine business since ten almost. I'm also a sommelier from the Italian Sommelier Association (品酒师协会). I know Elliott since long time and we also sometimes work together within his bistro.Okay, all right. So after the self introduction, I would like to jump directly into the whole Abruzzo wine topic. First of all, I would like to ask you to as individuals, what is your impression, not just as an importer or restaurant owner, but as just a wine drinker, wine lover, what is your impression of Abruzzo wine? Elliot?I think that the ones from Abruzzo are quite versatile, really easy drinking, but also unique and complex at the same time, both the reds and the whites. I was actually quite surprised when I first tried them because I didn't think that they were gonna be as good as they really are.Okay, what about you? Michele?I totally agree with Elliot on this part of the versatility of the wines they have. They are very good in different kinds of occasions. And according to the style, you can use it really, have a very wide applicability in the food pairing, and also not to forget that value for money, it's extremely high for an Italian wine especially.So that was your individual opinion. What about as an importer? I know for a fact that Elliot, as your import business actually carries... actually sells some of the Abruzzo wines and you also serve them in your bistro, right? Yes, that's correct. And can I ask about like your customers, do they like Abruzzo wine?I think at first, they were kind of questioning what is this wine and then also confusing Montepulciano with the Tuscany region as well. But after explaining it to them, and having them tried multiple wines, I think they've gradually become more acceptable to try more wines from the region and have really enjoyed them.Sounds great. Michele, you're from Italy, then back in Italy, what's people's opinion about Abruzzo wine? Is it one of those, I know Italy has so many famous, world famous wine regions. How does Abruzzo feature Italian ranking? Actually, in Italy, we have this problem that we are this huge, wide range of varieties of grape, varieties and wine varieties that we have. It's also sometimes a limit. So we drink a lot of local wines.

Keywords1.Greetings can be very different in the UK and US2.British humor V.S American humor3.Is there any difference in lifestyle between UK and US? 4.How does TJ feel spending 7 years to get his PhD？Well, it's not quite... we're not enemies, right? You assume that everything is normal and that you know what's happening. But really underneath, there's some kind of problem, some kind of complication is maybe a better word that you don't expect.Yeah, can you give us some like specific examples so that we can get a feel of it?Yeah, one very good example that I've come across several times because it's such a habit of mine is greetings.So in the UK is perfectly normal, especially in the north of the UK where I'm from, to say, are you all right as a greeting, right? Are you all right?That's not just in the north. I hear people say that a lot in London or around London as well. I that used to confuse me because in my book, when you ask people, are you all right as a way of greeting, it sounds like you assume that I'm ill.Right. And so the Americans feel the same way as you. It implies there's something wrong. Like, are you okay as if they've had an accident or fallen over or something has happened or they look very ill or something, I remember just 2 or 3 days ago, I went to a social event.And I saw somebody that I had met once before and I thought I'll go and talk to him, and I walked up to him and said, “are you all right?”, and he looked at me, and he said I'm fine. What's wrong? You know, as if there was some big thing I needed to talk to him about. Then I had to explain to him. No no, I'm just saying hi, right? That's the way it goes. It's interesting because you get different advice from different Americans you know. So Americans they don't say are you all right? They say how are you? how's it going? something like this. Yeah.But then what you say to that, do you actually reply and say how you feel or do you say nothing?I think it's just fine, right? In British culture is when they ask you how are you, they expect you to say I'm fine. Like I'm okay, I'm doing well. They don't expect you to tell them exactly how you feel, even if you feel bad that day, even if you feel a bit under the weather, you don't say, in British culture you don't like announced that because that was not expected.Yeah, there's maybe let's say like ten, maybe if I'm lucky 20 people in the world, when they ask me if I'm all right or if they ask me how it's going, that I will say to them a genuine answer, I'll say it's going okay or I'll say not so good today, but I’ll live or something.But one thing that's very common in the UK is that you give some kind of comical answer or something that's a little bit unusual difference. So I remember I went into the office and saw one of the members of staff and they asked me how I was, and I said I must be fine because my heart is still beating. And they look very confused by that. I feel like in the UK you can get away with these kind of slightly maybe eccentric responses. The British eccentric it's... Just like British humor is very very dry, I think that's the thing. British humor does not translate very well into American humor. I don't think to the general public, maybe in certain crowds, but certainly not in general public.It's true that the Americans seem to really like to signpost that they're making a joke.So everybody knows, you know, from the tone of voice, from the body language that it's big and it's a joke and it's exciting. Whereas, yeah, the English kind of like to slide the jokes in to normal conversation and say something counter intuitive. And it's like a landmine.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~The project is funded by “Top Taste Original, High Quality Products from Europe,” an European Union campaign promoting the Consortium of Abruzzo Wines and the Piave DOP Cheese Consortium. Hi everyone and welcome back to a special episode of Global Village. 欢迎回来【小酒馆大世界】的特别节目. Let's continue to talk about Abruzzo wines. After our talk with Davide who represents the Abruzzo wine region. I'm sure you all got to know a bit more about this beautiful wine region of Abruzzo and the unique wines and cheese it produces. Now let's connect with one of our old friends, Roger. And Roger is not only a wine expert who regularly holds like master classes on wine appreciation, but also the owner of a few very popular restaurants in Xiamen, was one on Gulangyu Island, right Roger?Yeah sure. I love my restaurant, anyway, this is by the seaside. Sounds beautiful! Love the seafood by the seaside. I mean, so today we invite you to the studio. So hopefully we can get some insights from you as a wine expert and also obviously someone in the food and beverage business. What is your impression of Abruzzo wine? So first of all, what is your personal impression and perhaps also professional impression of Abruzzo wine? OK! Shall we start with the professional side? Sure, of course. Which feel more, a lot more complicated. But overall, I think Abruzzo is not a very complicated wine, of course, but when it comes to the aging, and Abruzzo shows a very good potential of aging, shows complexity, shows the tertiary, a typical character of tertiary flavors, for example, like leather, chocolate, and which is (what) I like most. And apart from that, Abruzzo always comes from very ripe grapes. And that gives the Abruzzo wine a very beautiful, you know, there's a plum, ripe cherry, the sort of red fruit or dark fruit flavors; and plus with there's some aging in the oak. So, give it a hint of vanilla plus the chocolate I talked about and toffee, you know, the sort of sweet tasting. But it's not sweet, it's like just give you the sweetness. Sweetness, without the sugar. No, no sugar. So, I'm just talking about the ripening of the fruit. And it's no sweet but still really, really mature and ripe wine that you can have. From the other side, we also have easygoing Abruzzo wines. So, it's like daily consuming wines. So, it's more like a red and dark fruit together with red berry, strawberry and mixed with plum, mulberries. They sort all the different red and black fruits all mixed together. Lots of berries. It does, lots of berries over there. And it shows... there're sort of the really fruitiness and all over again and again, give you a really nice feeling of… in the flower garden, you know this sort of things. The floral and the fruity feeling. It all... from what you're describing, it sounds like quite an approachable wine. When I say approachable, I mean, some of the wines, although very famous, very like big wines from Italy, but they are actually harder for beginner wine lovers because they find it way too heavy. You know, like the Barolo, not everyone, especially like the beginners, they don't have that palate to appreciate that. So, it sounds like with the fruitiness, with the floral tasting notes, Abruzzo wine sounds perfect for people who want to know a little bit more about Italian wines. Exactly Lulu, I totally agree with you. For the big wine, for example, like what you say about Barolo and Barbaresco. They are big wine. They are really big. However, it's very harsh, you need a really good time for you to do the canteen and then to solve out all the tannin. Actually, for some beginners, you feel a lot of tart, you know, this sort of black tea, this sort of feeling that makes you like try to run away from it. Like quite a lot of people who first contact of the champagne, they can't even deal with those yeast. I know. A very strong yeast taste over there. It's the same story.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ So far we've talked about your studies, we talked about your interest in your field, but let's move on to something that is more about life in America, or life in academic setting in America. So first things first, let's talk about academic setting, because this is more specific. So far you have got degrees in British university, Chinese university and now doing a degree in American university. How would you compare these three very different university environment?Yeah, It's one of those things. Ah, it's a little bit difficult to compare the environments. But I definitely think, one of the things that comes to mind immediately is they definitely look after you more in China.So in America, they just kind of say here's some money, find somewhere to live, find something to eat and just take care of yourself. Of course, the Americans they think of this is freedom, right? I'm free to live wherever I want and eat and do whatever I want. But I do have to admit that I do like the Chinese system which kind of looks after you, right? Here's your room, the electricity is on this card and the canteen is down the road and it's tasty and it's cheap. Yeah, everything is sorted.Yeah, I guess it's very beginner friendly, newcomer friendly. Because you don't have to spend all the time feeling disoriented. Exactly! Right. And they'll usually have some kind of orientation does quite comprehensive and give you a nice map, and of course the professors and other students in America have been very kind to me and very helpful.But it's a lot more informal. There is some kind of online induction and training, but it's nowhere near as detailed and comprehensive as the things I experienced in China.What about British university then? Do they do anything like that for newcomers? Yeah, somewhere in the middle, I think, cause you do have the canteens and they are a little bit more expensive and exclusive than the Chinese ones. And it's different when you're undergraduate as well, actually. I think the undergraduates here get a little bit more guidance, just like I did in the UK. But I do think the UK, they kind of give you the training wheels a little bit. But they don't do too much to help you either. Yes, it’s closer to America than China, I think. I see. But what about just this whole work ethics? I don't know if it's the right word to describe it, like in terms of hardworking, how hard, which would you… I know every country, every university has the really, really hardworking people. It has also slackers. But comparatively speaking, which country has the hardest working students?I think it's interesting cause it's a continuum right? So I think in America they give you the most work, so you in terms of like the readings for the courses and things, they give you way more reading than it's humanly possible to do. And I think the idea is you have to kind of choose the important parts, find the important parts. So it's a kind of literature review every time. When I was at Fudan, they don't give you as much. Like maybe we just read like two passages of the Laozi, but you've got to know every single character, of course you've got to be able to read them, but the history of that character. And you've got to know what Huangdi said about that character. And you've got to know what He Shan Gong said about that character. And you've got know, like, there's so much more detailed. I see. This is sort of very two different styles, different focus.

The project is funded by “Top Taste Original, High Quality Products from Europe,” an European Union campaign promoting the Consortium of Abruzzo Wines and the Piave DOP Cheese Consortium. 可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Hi, everyone. Welcome back to your favorite segment Global Village. 欢迎大家回来你们最喜欢的板块【小酒馆·大世界】.Today we're going to present to you a special episode sponsored by the Abruzzo consortium from Italy. We have a special guest speaker in the studio, Mr. Davide Acerra, who is the marketing manager of the Abruzzo consortium. Welcome to the show Davide.Thank you, Lulu.First of all, could you give us a general introduction about yourself, especially your role at the Abruzzo consortium?For sure, I'm the marketing manager of the consortium that is the major organization in our region that represents more or less 80% of the producers from Abruzzo wines, and my role is... I work for the marketing about the marketing of the promotional activities of the Abruzzo DOC, in particular, and normally I organize the activities in the world, in particular out of Italy.The overseas market.Yeah. I talk about the wines, I talk with the agency, with the importer, all that you need to organize some promotional activities.I see. First of all, I think our audience probably, well I mean including me, we don't really know that much about the region. I've been to Italy many times, but mostly you know to Rome, Milan. So where is Abruzzo, and could you give us a general feel, I know that you actually live in Abruzzo, is that correct?This is a good question because normally the foreign people when they come to Italy normally used to go to Rome, Milan, Venezia, but Abruzzo is my region, we are in the center south of Italy, the east side of the country.Abruzzo is a very small area, you think that we are more or less 1 million habitants living here, so it's very small for the numbers of China, but it's very rich in biodiversity. It's a treasure of biodiversity.In fact, we are known as the green region of Europe because more than 30% of the territory is protected by leisure parks.Yeah, I mean before our talk actually I did a little bit of research online.Yeah.And like lonely planet is describing Abruzzo as like a hidden gem because its national parks, all the nature.We have free national parks. The first national park of Italy was in Abruzzo, we have one original park and about 77 natural protected areas, so you think it's very, very green, it’s a small region, but we have everything.In the east side, we have the sea. In the west side, we have the habitats, but we have many rivers, lakes, ancient villages, standing serene time. It's original to be discovered.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hi everyone, and welcome back to your favorite segment Global Village. 欢迎回来你们最喜欢的板块【小酒馆·大世界】. Today in our studio, we have an old friend. I'm just curious because even as early as your bachelor years, you were doing philosophy already, but what sparked that initial interest like when you chose major for your bachelors study, for your undergraduate study, what made you choose philosophy?I think philosophy is a little bit self-selecting. You have to be a certain kind of person to choose it. When you say self-selecting, is it one of those things like it's not so much as you select that philosophy selected you. Yes, all that it's may be part of my character to study philosophy I guess. I think some people can't help but continue to have those questions that children have. So children will always ask just yesterday, I was waiting to go into somewhere that wasn't open yet and there was a child and they were asking their parents, why isn't it open? And they're like because it's not time yet. And the child saying why isn't it time yet? Then they'd say everything has to happen at a certain time, and he's like, why, why can't everything happen all at once? Like why do they have to happen in order? And then the parent, the mother just said, do you want to look at some pictures on the phone? And The child said, yeah let's look at some videos or pictures on the phone. But unfortunately, I'm one of those children that says no, I want that answer to the question like why, why do things happen? And you carry on asking the annoying questions, they're more interesting than the pictures on the phone. Oh. I see. Yeah, one of those highly inquisitive souls basically.Right. Right or highly annoying, I think, is the other way of describing. I bet your parents say that about you, but you know it's like the major that we study or the field that we're in, the type of jobs that we do, they all make an impact or imprint on us, right? So studying philosophy and even this almost like getting into religious study territory, how has this changed you or do you think it has changed you or your perspectives, your personality at all over the years? Yeah of course. It’s kind of has to, and I think there are definitely a lot of philosophy books, whether it's the Laozi or whether it's JS Mill on liberty or Nāgārjuna...those books after you read them, yeah, you're a completely different person.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hi everyone, and welcome back to your favorite segment Global Village. 欢迎回来你们最喜欢的板块【小酒馆·大世界】. Actually today in our studio welcome back an old friend, some of you probably remember we had this philosophy segment called Let's Philosophize? 可能还有一些小伙伴记得原来你们很喜欢的一个板块叫做【知乎哲也】，是讲哲学问题的, 当时就有很多人喜欢这个板块的嘉宾主播TJ, so TJ, welcome back. Hi, Lulu. I'm very glad to be back with you after a long hiatus. I mean you have been really busy, right? I thought the reason why I invited TJ to this segment rather than Let's Philosophize is because he has some interesting life updates to share. Like before in this segment earlier this year, if some of you still remember, we talked to Brad about his move to Japan. And TJ, you were in China in Beijing before COVID and during the COVID years you were back in the UK, and now you're in America. Right, O’er land of the free and the home of the brave as they call it. I'm just trying to get used to the culture shock of being in another place. I call it my third childhood. I had my first childhood in England, my second childhood in China. Now I'm learning everything again, right? Completely different environment. I'm sure this is going to be a very interesting talk. But first things first, let's start with where exactly are you? I mean the United States is a big place. Where are you? The area that I'm in is called the Midwest. The Midwest is the area that's seen as almost like the suburbs of America. It's lots of corn. People are supposed to be very friendly and they've been very nice to me so far. And it's somewhere that seemed to have a community and family values. Which state are you in?So the state that I'm in is called Indiana. Indiana, okay. Are you in like a big city at least or are you like really in suburbs or even countryside of America? So it's one of the strange things really that I'm in a town called Bloomington, which has under 100,000 people. So it is quite small. It's like a village in China.Right. You can bike around very easily. And the interesting thing about Bloomington to me is that its almost half of the entire population is to do with the university, right, its teachers, students or staff. This is my next question and I'm sure a lot of you want to ask this question. Why are you in America? It's a good question, right? Especially as I focus on early Chinese philosophy. So it's a strange place. It's essentially it's because my supervisor in China told me to come here. We have some of the best researchers that focus on early Taoist thought and early Confucian thought in all of the western world. Let me get this straight. You now move from China or from the UK to America to study Chinese philosophy? Yes. That is true. I know it seems very strange. But the degree you're doing right now is your PhD right, your doctorate? Right. I'm doing a PhD.For those of you who don't really know TJ’s really interesting educational background, Let me fill you in. TJ has got two master’s degrees, right? One from the UK one, from China, from Fudan university. Yes, that's right. Can you tell us a little bit about that like what degree did you like, what major did you do it in what field?My undergraduate degree I did in Leeds in England that’s philosophy. Then I went to Beijing Normal university and did some language courses at Beijing Normal University. After that, I did my teacher training. It was in Manchester but it's the Cambridge certification, right? That's not as impressive as it sounds for the listeners that are easily “fooled”. And then a master at Birmingham and then as another master of Fudan, now a PhD in America. So you're just one of those like perpetual students. Right, right. I think I do grow up slowly. It takes a long time for me to grow up.

1.Has people’s spending habits or their preferences changed after Covid?2.How is prosecco rose different from prosecco?3.How to pair prosecco with food?4.Special mixology tips for prosecco rosé.5. What kind of new prosecco events are on the horizon? Hi, everyone and welcome to the show. This episode is made in collaboration with the Prosecco DOC Consortium. After our talk with Tanja, I'm sure you all got to know a bit more about prosecco and the beautiful region it comes from. Now let's connect with another one of our guests, Roger, who is not only representing Casa prosecco in China, but also the owner of a trendy restaurant on Gulangyu island, Xiamen. Hi, Roger. Hi Lulu. Welcome back to the show.Haha, it’s been a pleasure.So since we talked last time, what has been happening with Casa Prosecco, your restaurant and the general restaurant, food and beverage industry.Well, we have really bad impact from the pandemic. It's been a really tough time for the restaurant owners during the period, but lucky to see we are slowly going through it. Now we see some really, really good conditions gonna come in, shows up and then to have a better economic situation right now. For our restaurant, it was really quiet, people are afraid to go out, have dinner or something. Now we get back to normal, so I'm happy to see that this is or a good sign for the future. I'm quite happy with that.Yeah, I mean good to know that. But would you say... you said it's back to normal, but I just want to know how has this, obviously Covid has a lot of impact on people in all aspects, so have your customers changed somehow like their spending habits or their preferences? For example, have they been spending more after everything opened up? Have they been celebrating more or are they more cautious about spending money? What would you say?This is a great question because it's some sort of controversy in between because after such a long period of lockdown and people were not able to go out freely to have a good time together with a friend or any events.Now they are free to go, so they sort of really happy with that. When they come to our restaurant, I also found out it's a better condition compared to before, however, the purchasing power looks like it goes down. I mean the whole economic situation, it's not really going back to normal, but I'm looking forward to see that, but nowadays if people wanted to buy some champagne, you know the customer used to have champagnes, now they don't really have the money, they would say, okay, show me something really happy stuff and not too expensive. You know what I mean, so now comes to the realistic that people would like to have some fun, they love to and eager to have some fun, but don't cost me too much.Well, prosecco now becomes a more affordable and approachable option I guess.That is exactly what I'm going to say that, now the happy style and they cost less and you can spend less for a longer period of happiness if you know what I mean.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Keywords1.Types of cults that existed thousands of years ago2.Cults VS. Marketing scheme3.Why start a cult?Welcome back to Geek Time advanced. I'm Brad. Hi, Brad. How's it going Lulu? Yeah. I'm good. I'm ready to talk more about cult.All right. So we're gonna talk a little bit about some of the early cults before like thousands of years ago those types of cults. Oftentimes, cults were considered to be part of like minor religions .So just like pagan beliefs.Definitely, like smaller groups of people having different ideas when the movies we often see them as cannibalistic or something like that really sinister kind of like the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and ripping hearts out of your body, stealing your soul kind of thing.Honestly, I think in terms of Indiana Jones, if you don't mind me saying it, it is a little bit of racial prejudice and it's like mystifying or even vilifying cultures that you don't know perhaps.Yeah, they have those...now one of the actual cults that was kind of like it was almost a runner up to early Christianity was called mithraism.Mithraism.Mithraism yeah. Now that was in the Roman empire. You could see they had these underground places where they would worship and mithraism was kind of like... it was an astrological type of cult, they worshipped space and that type of... it wasn't a particular god or anything like that they worshipped, it was the closest thing to a god you could see was like the Taurus, the bullAlmost sounds like the earlier definition of cult is basically just outside of the mainstream. It doesn't have that destructive element.Yeah. Some of them did, some of them had like they might have had sacrifices, although some people think that those sacrifices may not have actually been people they killed, they may have been people that have just died. And so it's kind of hard to see where it actually happened. It could just be that the bigger religions were trying to vilify them as mentioned earlier, but that's something that was actually this mithraism was actually quite common. They found over 400 sites around Rome where they did worship.

Cult可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hi, everyone. And welcome back to Geek time. 欢迎回到Geek时间。Welcome back to the studio, Brad.Thank you.Today we are going to talk about something equally niche. We’re gonna talk about cult.Indeed.就是邪教了。You know cult I guess in any culture in any country is kind of a taboo topic, isn't it?It can be. Especially like if you know someone who was part of cult because that's when you see someone going through the process of getting into a cult, it kind of like can destroy a whole family.It's something very serious and it can potentially be very, very dark. First of all, let's talk about the definition of cult. What is a cult?Usually a cult is a group of people that follow a leader or some sort of ideology. It might be some sort of idol as in like a thing. 一个领袖或者一种理念。 And they are usually just families joining, or individuals join...Sometimes it's families, but often time it's like a group of people will follow an enigmatic person.I think cults based on my very limited understanding of cults, the reason why there are cults is because they hurt people. They are destructive. Oftentimes they are, and it's something you see after the cult becomes much much bigger, you don't see it in the early stages because if you were to do something like that, people are obviously going to quit. But once you have a cult established and you have these followers, then in order to keep people from going somewhere else, you might hurt them in order to get them to not leave.So a lot of it is to attract them first, and then once they build up some sort of loyalty or fear to the leader and then it's destructive. Right. It's some sort of dependence on them oftentimes like a cult will get someone to sell off all their possessions or like hand over the money, or if you have a house, you sign over your house to the cult leader, so then you have nowhere to go, you have that home and you can live there so long as the cult allows it. It seems like a lot of the cults across the globe seem to believe that the world is going to end and then just believing in that cult is the only way to save yourself.Right. It's either the cult is you're going to save yourself by being in this cult or that they as a cult are going to be the thing that saves the world. 这种所谓的末日邪教doomsday cults. But we talked about secret societies before. What are the differences? It sounds somewhat similar - it’s secretive with a small group of people.Well, like a secret society can be kind of a subset of cult in some ways they have the, usually it’s an ideology rather than like an individual person. Like in a secret society, you may not know who the cult leader is. It may change from area to area and it might be like a group of cults over a large area.So they don't worship any particular leaders. Secret societies are more connected by an idea. Yeah, an idea or some sort of idol. And in most cases, there can be like secret societies that are akin to a cult in the fact that they have a leader who's controlling everything, but secret societies tend not to have such a limited nature. I mean when you're back in the states, like growing up, did you have any run ins or have ever heard about cults in like your social circle?In fact, I did. I've known several people who have been in different types of cults, it's actually when I was just after high school, one of my friends who I worked with actually, he got fired, he lost his job, his wife divorced him. And then he kind of joined this cult, inside of the cult the leader said that he could read other peoples’ previous life so it was like this reincarnation cult.这种重生转世。 And why would people believe him?

Keywords1.Brief idea of what is Prosecco?2.What is DOC short for?3.What are the aims of the Prosecco DOC Consortium and especially what new development has been made with regard to Casa Prosecco, the overseas branches of the consortium.4.After the pandemic, has the sales of Prosecco worldwide experience a significant increase? What is the forecast for Prosecco sale in the near future?5.Are cocktails like spritz popular in Italy?6.If people travel to the Prosecco region, what can they see and do.Hi, everyone and welcome to the show. This episode is made in collaboration with the Prosecco DOC Consortium. Today we are very lucky to have a special guest in the studio Ms. Tanja Barattin, representing the Prosecco DOC Consortium in Italy. First of all, welcome to the show, Tanja . Hello, everyone. Thank you for having me today.Actually, I should say welcome back, because last year, if you remember, Tanja was on the show talking about Prosecco already.Yes, exactly. It's a pleasure to be back with you today.And it's my pleasure. I mean, still probably some of our listeners haven't listened to that particular episode. So could you give us a brief self-introduction about your role in the Prosecco DOC Consortium? What exactly do you do?Yeah, sure. I'm Tanja Barattin, I’m the promotional department manager at the Prosecco DOC Consortium. So my role is in marketing and promotional activities in the China and foreign markets, and I coordinate events and recreation for Prosecco DOC.I see, so definitely representing Prosecco. Then can you give us a very brief idea of what is Prosecco to people who have probably not heard of it or just heard of it briefly? What is Prosecco?Prosecco is one of the most worldwide consumed Italian sparkling wine. It is produced with Glera grapes and it's named after the former village of Prosecco. So we can see the Prosecco is expression of a specific territory which is located in all these of Italy lying between the Dolomites to the Adriatic Sea, a unique area that we call as a dreamland. Thanks to the particular interaction between climate, soil and wine making tradition.So Prosecco is a location name.Yeah, it's a location. It represents a territory with specific rules collected also into production specification and also the supply chain. So from the vineyards and wine sell out into the labeling and commercialization.I see, so to sort of like make an analog so that audience can understand, is it a bit like when people think of champagne, this is the wine from champagne area. When you people think of Prosecco, this is a specific dual tag. It is the same, actually DOC, so the Denominazione di Origine Controllata (controlled designation of origin) prosecco was born in 2009 from the wine makers, and sparkling houses of nine provinces between the regions of Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia, and these in order to link in this solemnly the wine to its territory of origin.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~So the sense of community is definitely a pro living in small town. What about some of the cons? Did you feel like I just can't get used to this, especially initially. So there are a few things I mean the lack of food options was a big thing, like I really miss Chinese food; entertainment, I mentioned karaoke before, there was karaoke, but you'd have to go to someone's house to do it. Karaoke in the sense of like karaoke rooms. This does not exist. If I wanted to go to the... there was a supermarket but it was fairly small. So the shopping options were fairly limited; and public transport, there was no public transport if you didn't have a car, you had to walk, because New Zealanders traditionally live in houses with big gardens, not apartments. Walking into town could actually be quite a distance. I see, what about the quietness? Because one thing that I couldn't take when I just spent a few days in English countryside, it was too quiet. It was driving me crazy. How did you handle it?That didn't bother me to be honest. I remember like when I first moved from New Zealand to Beijing, I... this was the year of 2000 and I was staying in Daxing district, and I would just get woken up every morning by thousands of bicycles and bike bells. I struggled with that. I did not struggle coming back to New Zealand with the quietness.I think it's also because you grew up in a smallish town. Right? I grew up a in a city of about 65~ 70,000 people. So a small area, a low populated area.When you move back after all these years living in Beijing to this 4,000 people town, did you notice that your lifestyle has changed or your perspective about things have changed?Absolutely, hugely.So when I lived in Beijing, I had this... it was almost like a feeling of being invincible in some ways, you could go out. It felt like anything was possible in China, that might have just been the time that I was living there around the Olympics, prior to the Olympics, and around the time of the Olympics.It was very high profile...It was just fanatic and it was always stuff going on. There was always opportunities and people were just so optimistic and positive. I was caught up in that. I loved it.Coming back to New Zealand. Everyone was very sedate, very quiet, probably quite pessimistic compared to the optimism that we've been feeling in China.Am I to understand it's kind of like people in Beijing especially back then, no matter if you're Chinese or not Chinese, you felt like there's so many opportunities, so anything can happen, I can make something out of myself. I don't really know how big a success that I can land in the future.But going back, it's more like how your life's gonna be.I'd say so, I've obviously got older as well. So I've been back in New Zealand, living in New Zealand for the past 10, 12years. I've aged as well. So I'm quite happy going to bed at 9 o'clock.Actually, this is my next question. What is the life like in small town, New Zealand, if you have to walk us through a typical day, not just you, I know you have your business, you have actually a lot of things to do, but for an average New Zealanders living in a small town. What is their average day like?Yeah, most people that live in small towns, I just like everyone else. They would either go to school or have a job. In small town, New Zealand, unemployment is probably a bit higher than in the cities. So there will be.. I mean unemployment is still fairly low, but unemployment does exist. New Zealand has a pretty good social welfare system.So if you are unemployed, you get paid weekly. The chances are if you're living in a small town, everything is gonna be much cheaper.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Hi everyone. And welcome back to your favorite segment Global Village. 欢迎回来【小酒馆·大世界】Actually since we're talking to Simon in this segment again, I thought we’d just call this a new segment, just call it New Zealand Under The Microscope. 干脆我们把跟Simon的这一段改叫【闲话新西兰】得了, hi Simon.你好, hello, kia ora.So Simon, we've talked about quite a few topics related to New Zealand, life in New Zealand, today I thought I'm gonna propose another topic that is related to lifestyle in New Zealand, which is how does it feel living in small town New Zealand, or how is it different from your experience of living in places like Beijing or Seoul Or Auckland? Sure. What do you think? Yeah, that sounds good. All right. First of all, for people who don't really know New Zealand, at least you know it's... New Zealand is next to Australia, is in southern hemisphere and is far away from most of the other countries in the world. So exactly how far is New Zealand to other parts of the world, say in flight times from where you live? So New Zealand is very far from everywhere pretty much, we've got Antarctica below us, but there's not many people, in fact, almost no people there, lots of penguins. We've got Australia to our west, it's about 4 hours flight from Auckland to Sydney. So 4 hours by plane, if I wanted to go to, for example, HongKong or Guangzhou, you're looking at around 12, 13 hours, 14 hours to Seoul, 14.5 to Beijing. If I want to go all the way to the UK, so to London Heathrow, it's going to take 24 hours, it's gonna take a full day to fly there. I've been to New Zealand, but I never really fully like realized how far it is. I would imagine going from... I know going from Beijing to New Zealand is far, but I would imagine going from HongKong to New Zealand is not as long as that, but that's really long. We sort of have a bit of an island mentality when things in the world are going badly.

欢迎来到英文小酒馆的迷你双语板块【Buzzword Mix】-新词特饮，短短几分钟，让不同段位的你掌握最新最地道的英文谈资！可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~In today's Buzzword Mix, our buzzword is Gluten Free. In the past few years, if I went to restaurants overseas, especially say in Europe or some trendy western restaurants in China, I've started to see this word a lot on the menu. 也就是近几年, 不管我是在国外的餐厅, 还是说国内的一些西餐厅网红店, 经常会在菜单上看到这个词, Gluten Free. So what exactly is Gluten Free? 今天的新词特饮我们就来说说这个叫做Gluten Free的饮食风潮. First thing first, what is Gluten Free? Gluten直译是麸质, 麦麸的麸, 这个字还挺复杂的. A gluten free diet is an eating plan that excludes foods containing gluten. 所谓的Gluten Free就是无麸质饮食, 可能听到这里还是很多小伙伴一头雾水, 到底这个麸质是在什么食物里有呢？Gluten is a protein found in wheat, barley, rye, and triticale.麸质其实就是一种蛋白质, 它常见于wheat 小麦, barley大麦, rye 裸麦和triticale这个词我也是第一次听到叫黑小麦, 听到这里可能很多喜欢吃面食的小伙伴都沉默了. A Gluten Free Diet means you can't eat any of that? Then why would people go on this diet? 既然这些最常见的麦都不能吃, 为什么会有人愿意吃这种Gluten Free Diet无麸质饮食? Originally, a gluten free diet is essential for managing signs and symptoms of celiac disease and other medical conditions associated with gluten. 它最早其实不是一个饮食风潮, 而是对于一些疾病的应对措施. The top one is celiac disease, 这个在中文叫乳糜泻.Celiac disease is a condition in which gluten triggers immune system activity that damages the lining of the small intestine. It is an autoimmune disorder. 简单来说乳糜腺Celiac Disease就是是指摄入含麸质的食物之后, 会产生一种自体免疫性肠道疾病, 所以有这种病的人需要无麸质饮食, 就跟糖尿病人需要低糖饮食一样. The other type of health condition that requires people to go on a gluten free diet is Wheat Allergy. 另外一种需要无麸质饮食的健康状况叫做Wheat Allergy 小麦过敏.Like other food allergies, this is the result of the immune system mistaking gluten as a disease causing agent. This will trigger immune system response that may result in congestion, breathing difficulties and other symptoms. 这种小麦过敏就和其他的食物过敏症差不多, 你都会有一些不良的身体反应, 比如说呼吸困难等等.But then because some celebrities are endorsing this diet, the gluten free diet started to become popular among people who don't have these medical conditions. That's because a lot of people are claiming a gluten free diet has other benefits, for example, improved health, weight loss, and increased energy. 但是在国外一些明星大V开始推动了 Gluten Free无麸质饮食的风潮, 说它除了治病还有很多的好处, 比如说improved health会改善你的整体健康状况, weight loss可以减肥, increase energy也可以让你整个人更精神更有能量, 所以 Gluten Free Diet就开始在普通人中间流行起来.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~o Money doesn’t mean that you are posh.▪ Posh people generally dress in tweed, wellington boots and shabby clothes – nothing to prove!o Only a quarter of the people actually want to be posh.▪ Many people in the UK see posh people as spoilt, snobbish and entitled. Seen as old-fashioned and pretentious.▪ British people don’t like people who try to pretend to be posh by showing off their wealth and being fake.• Posh wordso Loo (instead of toilet)o Suppero Marvellouso Terriblyo GoshActually I do wanna say something. You mentioned like posh accents before and everybody's saying in Britain, people can tell which class you are from just by accents. I see that in this you didn't really mention accents. So is accent really a sign of whether you're posh or not. To a certain extent, yeah. Accents really do show where you come from. So in the UK sometimes people say that I've got a bit of a posh accent. I don't have a typical accent from where I grew up, but that's mostly because I’ve lived in China for years and years and years and also been a teacher. I don't think you've got a posh accent, people who say 安澜 has got a posh accent, you really haven't heard a real posh accent. No, that is very exaggerated. However we did explain before, right? Even the real posh people, the old money people nowadays, sometimes they try to tone down their posh accents. Mockney. They actually try to talk common people accent. Yeah, because nowadays only 1/4 of the people who were actually interviewed in this survey actually want to be posh. To be honest, it's not that difficult to understand that because we're not just talking about money, right, later on we're gonna talk about money doesn't mean that you're posh. It's not really about money and enjoyment, is mostly about rules. A lot of this they are privileges, but also attached to many rules you can’t just be running around like other kids and doing all this random things, you probably have a lot of family rules to follow.More partly yeah. I would say it is changing a lot. And to be honest, I would say that being posh is now more of a sign of identity. It's not I would say as it was maybe 50 years ago, certainly not a hundred years ago when being posh meant that yes you had to go... you went to the best schools therefore you got the best jobs you would probably in government. Actually, they probably didn't even have jobs think about Downton Abbey. Yeah, exactly. The idea of job and weekends is very middle class. Yeah, they just had lands to inherit, castles, and so manor houses, exactly, to inherit and family coat of arms, heirlooms. I've met posh people in my life and…

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~keywordsBritain under the Microscope – Posh • What does posh mean?o Positive – expensive and high quality▪ Posh restaurant/car/clotheso Negative – describing someone as posh.▪ He is really posh.▪ Posh accent• How do you know if someone is posh?o There was a survey in 2021 and these are the top 10 signs.▪ You went to boarding school.▪ You have antiques and family heirlooms.▪ You have a wine cellar.▪ You have paintings of your ancestors.▪ You never discuss money.▪ You call your parents “mummy” and “daddy” when you are an adult.▪ You have a family coat of arms.▪ You ride horses.▪ Your dinner parties are catered.Hi, everyone. And welcome back to Britain Under the Microscope. 欢迎回来【闲话英伦】. Hello, 安澜. Hi Lulu. Hi, everyone. So let me propose a topic. Okay. This is a question that has been bugging me for ages. There's one word in British culture that I find very difficult to translate correctly or accurately into Chinese. This is the word posh, p-o-s-h. I know some of you listening to this show, you probably think Lulu you're a translator, easy, just look it up online and dictionary. But it's not so much I don't know the word because that has so much cultural connotation. Yes, the idea of posh really changes its meaning constantly. So first things first, if you look it up in English-Chinese dictionary, ‘posh’ probably can be translated into上流社会的,优雅的, things like that. But it has so many more meanings. The first question I'm gonna ask you is posh a good word or a bad word. It depends. I knew it. So for example, you use the Chinese word 优雅 which is more elegant in English. Now we could describe a place as posh, so a posh restaurant, a posh car, posh clothes. That just means it's expensive, it's high quality, fancy, it's fancy, it's luxurious, maybe. But it's when you describe somebody as posh that becomes a bit negative. If I say 安澜 is really posh. I would not take that as a compliment. So if you say someone is really posh, they have posh accent, what you’re doing is you're being a little bit negative. You're saying they're pretentious. Pretty much.就是有点装. 对吧？装着高大上的感觉. Pretentious and also snobbish as well. Snobbish means... meaning you look down on other people, you think you're better. But keep in mind. Posh is very subtle. If you use it to describe things, locations, it's good, it means luxurious, expensive; but use it to describe people usually quite negative, it focuses more on snobbery and pretentious. Yes, that's right. But that still hasn't answered the question. What is posh? Seriously, what is... well I know you're not. I'm not, very much, common as Muck. What is posh? Is it just higher class?Mostly, yes. Now to be posh is not just about money. Is you have a certain family background, you have a certain identity around kind of where you live, what you do and also the people that you hang out with. It still sounds really vague. I mean if only there’s some sort of criteria. Funny you should say that, there was actually a survey in 2021 on how do you know if someone is posh？Okay, let's hear that. So these are the top 10 signs that someone is posh. 大家听听这个英国人自己评选出来的10条, 这10条如果你都中了或者中了绝大多数, 你就是英国人眼里的posh. So let's hear it. So number one, you went to boarding school. Isn't boarding school just when you actually live in school on campus就是寄宿学校. In China boarding school is just... boarding is just a function. Yeah, no, in the UK, boarding school or private school is incredibly posh because they're very expensive.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~In Chinese culture, the seventh month of the Lunar Calendar holds special significance. It is known as “Ghost Month” 鬼月and hosts the so-called “Ghost Festival” (鬼节) on the 15th of the ghost month. Several Asian countries celebrate the annual Ghost Festival, which is also referred to as either “Zhongyuan Festival” or Yulanpen Festival盂兰盆节. The festival finds it origins in Buddhism, Taoism and Chinese folk beliefs.中元节，民间俗称七月半，七月十五，祭祖节，佛教则称其为盂兰盆节。在统治者推崇道教的唐代，道教的中元节开始兴盛，逐渐将“中元”固定为节名，并相沿迄今。Ghost Month 鬼月Ghost Festival 鬼节Buddhism 佛教Yulanpen Festival 盂兰盆节Taoism 道教Zhongyuan festival 中元节Folk belief 民间信仰Ever since ancient times, Chinese people had the ritual of paying tribute to their ancestors in the middle of the seventh month on the night of the full moon.Taoist doctrine holds that the three basic elements that generate everything in the universe are heaven, earth and water, namely sanyuan or “three elements". The official of heaven brings blessings during Shangyuan (Lantern Festival). The official of earth absolves sins during Zhongyuan Festival, while the official of water dispels disasters during Xiayuan Festival. 自古以来，每年农历七月半满月的晚上，人们有祭拜先祖的习俗。道教将宇宙中万物归为三类：天，地，水，又叫做三元，并以三元配三官，说天官赐福，地官赦罪，水官解厄。上元天官正月十五日生，对应的是上元节（元宵节）；中元地官七月十五日生，对应的是中元节（鬼节）；下元水官十月十五日生，对应的是下元节（比较不受重视，没有小名）。 Pay tribute to one’s ancestors 祭祖Bring blessing 赐福 Absolve sins 赦罪Dispel disaster 解厄