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~ It’s such a nice tale and I especially love the ending part where the police were, they were trying to ask if you need psychological help, because they didn't want you to have a traumatic sort of like live with the trauma of that kind of situation of the emergency situation, as a very moving act I would say. Because I thought the police were just coming to say what did you do, Simon? No, they were really good actually, so they came and they asked more to just double check that I was okay than anything else, but they wanted to hear what had happened. And then also tell me the lady had been was fine, she was okay, she was not too seriously injured, not life threateningly. But I back then in the darkness in that sort of situation, when you have no medical training, you don't really know the extent of her injury, were you scared at all, like she's gonna die on me? Because there's bound to be some time, at least half an hour or so that you had to wait with her in the car, right? Yeah, at that time, I think there was adrenaline, there was a lot of adrenaline going on. Of course, I was worried, but I didn't feel I didn't sort of go, Oh my God, this is no what do I do? I just sort of I think common sense sort of played a role. She's bleeding, okay, I want to stop the bleeding. Going, passing out is not a good thing, okay, I'll keep talking to her and keep her awake. Or she's shivering, I'll make sure the heat is up and give her blankets. So it was really just common sense stuff. I suppose some people are like that, they are extremely calm in these kind of situations that don't freak out because it's like the logical part of the brain is taking control, they compartmentalize so they don't really have the time to feel the emotions. That's what you were saying that delayed shock. Delayed shock, and then once it was done, once I could suddenly breathe and go, okay, she's now in the ambulance, she's now not my responsibility. That's when my brain decided to go on a holiday. And I have no recollection, no memory. Now having told us the story, let me I have a few questions to ask. Was this completely a freak accident that never happened or was it actually a relatively common danger that people have to watch out for the falling boulders? It's not common, it's certainly not common, but it does happen because these roads we don't have cars on them all the time. Boulders or rocks will fall off cliff faces, but usually it they just fall and no one's around, doesn't affect anyone. There are cases where a rock has fallen and it's around a corner, a car comes around the corner and hits the rock. It's not very common, no. Also in New Zealand and I'm sure it's the same in some parts of China where there's a lot of mountainous, mountain roads. They put like a metal mesh over the rock face. Oh, yes. 一个网子 to hold the falling rock. To hold the falling rocks. And so that's pretty common. Now in New Zealand. I see. But if people were to travel to New Zealand for the first time travelers, what kind of dangers especially from nature should people watch out for? I know you don't really have many dangerous animals. Do you have any other risks that people have to watch out for?

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hi, everyone and welcome back to New Zealand Under the Microscope. Hi, Simon. Hi, Kia Ora. 你好. Nice to see you again. Kia Ora. Now today instead of talking about life in New Zealand in general, I would like to to get Simon to tell us about one of his legendary tales. Simon这个人特别传奇, 有很多传奇的人生故事. Now I understand that once in New Zealand, after you moved back, you saved someone's life. You embarrassed me, Lulu, you embarrassed me. Don't be coy. Let's hear that story. I've heard it before and it's truly, it's legendary. All right. A few years ago, I was having to travel a lot for work. So I have clients that are all over the country and I would do a lot of driving. So every week I was on the road going to different cities thousands of kilometers every month. Now one night I was driving home, it was very late, it was around midnight or 1:00 am. I was driving down a rural road. I live in a city called Napier. I was driving on this road which connected Napier and another city called Taupo. This road, it's a terrible road. It's a very bendy road. There's sort of cliffs on each side, that's forested, very bendy, very dark. There's no houses, there's no people around for about 100 kilometers. Total wilderness basically. Yeah, absolutely. It's quite common for there to be accidents on this road. What type of accidents? I don't imagine there will be lots of cars. It's not a huge number of cars but certainly people regularly travel. If you're from Napier and you need to travel north, so if you need to travel up to Auckland or Hamilton or Tauranga or any of the other main cities in the north island, excluding Wellington, Palmersto North, you have to travel on this road. I see.

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！ 关注公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】，获取更多有趣节目内容和文稿哦~ In today's Buzzword Mix, our buzzword is Desk Bombing. You know the word ‘desk’, now ‘bombing’ sounds pretty scary. 大家都知道‘bomb’是 ‘炸弹’的意思, but Desk Bombing is not a terrorist act. It is actually a term circulating in the workplace context recently. It describes the act of dropping by your co-workers at their desk unannounced. 直译为 ‘桌边轰炸’或者 ‘办公桌轰炸的行为’,其实就是指的在办公室工作的状态下, 你的同事并没有提前跟你商量, 就突然来到你的办公桌边跟你说个什么事儿. This act is called Desk Bombing, and people who are doing it are Desk Bombers. 这些人就被直译为‘办公桌炸弹客’. The desk bomber could be allocating work, asking for clarification, checking up on you or simply sharing a juicy piece of gossip. 这些Desk Bomber他们找你说话的目的可能确实是分配工作, 澄清一些工作上的事情, 或者只是找你聊个天八个卦. The reason why this is called Desk Bombing is because they came unannounced, unplanned, they didn't warn you. 之所以把它叫做Desk Bombing是指的他们并没有事先跟你约好. Some workers prefer dropping by your desk over sending emails to a colleague, especially if they're also in the same room, others hate the interruption to their workflow. 关于Desk Bombing到底好还是不好, 就见仁见智了. 有的人就觉得说, 咱们都已经在同一个房间了, 比起send邮件面对面直说更方便; 也有些人就觉得你入侵了我的私人空间, 打断了我整个工作的流程. And these type of people they would think how dare they talk to me, invade my space. Now we've just been through 3 years of Covid, people got used to the idea of working and studying at home. When you're working and studying at home, it gives you the opportunity to present an idealized version of yourself, protected by the barrier of the screen. 疫情三年, 很多人都习惯了居家办公居家学习. 因为在居家办公的状态, 你向你的同事可以呈现一个比较理想化的状态, 那些不理想的部分你可以不让他看到. For example, when you get a call, you can decline. You can change your status to ‘busy’. When a task needs uninterrupted concentration, 你可以更多的自己有掌控力. You become adjusted to hammering out tasks without distractions or needing to engage in small talk. 特别是那种不喜欢small talk闲聊的人, 居家办公可以说帮你规避了所有的这些. But now we're back in the office or at least mostly back in the office to readjust to working in the office, desk bombing starts to become an issue. So how do people feel about it？Now here I'm gonna share with you some interesting opinions and perspectives that I got from an online interview. 这里就跟大家分享一个网上的采访和调研得出来的对于Desk Bombing的几种观点. Person A has been a hybrid worker for the past 7 years. 我们之前也说过, hybrid worker就是一半在家, 一半在办公室这样的一个混合型办公. It's actually very popular around the world in the post pandemic context. He says one of my pet hates is Desk Bombing. He doesn't like it. The days I got to work from home were so productive. I feel the lack of desk bombing on those days is the reason why. A就说我居家办公的时候效率特别高, 主要就是因为没有人会Desk Bomb我. He adds, since remote working has become far more commonplace. The remote equivalent-sudden, unexpected video calls- can be similar, but I feel you have a lot more control over these. 虽然说你在远程居家办公的时候, 也可能会有人突然给你打个视频, 但是在这个情况下, 你是可以有权利拒绝的, 至少你会有更多的控制力.

搜索公号: 【璐璐的英文小酒馆】 查音频节目文稿，了解广阔的世界。跟随我们的脚步，体会英语的温度！The next part is the big part really, this is called the Investiture. Investiture我查了一下叫做授职. Based on the Chinese I can only imagine this is basically giving the King the power. That's right. The King was presented with the Coronation regalia. What are the regalia？ The regalia are all of the jewels and the gold. For example, you have the orb. Orb不是一个球吗？ Yes, it’s basically a round golden ball with a cross on top, and that symbolizes the Christian world. Then he gets the sceptre, and that represents kingly power and justice. Sceptre我在打游戏的时候学到这个词, 就是权杖. And the scepter is pretty amazing because it does actually have the world's largest diamond at the top of it. Oh, the bling-bling. And finally the big moment, the St Edward’s Crown. This is the crowning就是加冕了. Yes. St Edward’s Crown was placed on the King's head and you probably saw that it was quite difficult. That's because it weighs 2kg. 2kg is nothing. He is in his 70s. I was imagining something like 5 or 10kg. No, it's about 2kg but still would you really place 2kg on the head of someone in their 70s？ Especially considering that he's already holding an orb and scepter and wearing lots of ceremonial clothing. And consider that he has to probably keep wearing that for a good half an hour. The St Edward’s Crown actually dates back to the 17th century. It's not actually the crown that's used every day. That's another crown. There’s an everyday crown? but I mean... Yeah, it's... when I say everyday crown, I don't mean that he wears the crown when he has a bath. You mean like normal, regular ceremonial crown, but this is a special Coronation crow. This is probably the only time he will ever wear the St Edward’s Crown. I see. So I have a question. Obviously the one who's putting the crown on the King's head is also Archbishop of Canterbury. Yes. I've read it somewhere that when the King is stepping up to his throne, he's helped by all these religious figures. Oh yes, that's partly symbolic, but also partly is... Because he's elder... Also because everything he's carrying is really heavy. Yeah, but when Queen Elizabeth, when... during her Coronation, she was very young. But she was still helped. They're not gonna like body builders or anything like that. You can see that they're basically they're carrying things that probably weigh about a good 10kg if not more. And they have the long... the gown the tunic. They have the gowns and they have the cloaks. So it does get rather difficult, and let's face it, would you really want to drop something at that time？ You don't wanna trip over your tunic. Exactly. Remember, this is being watched by millions of people. So was that the end of the ceremony？ Nope. Then it came to the enthronement. Now this is when originally the lords and nobles would swear loyalty to the King. And when Queen Elizabeth became the Queen, this lasted for hours because every single noble had to go, kiss the Queen and swear loyalty. Kiss the hand I'm assuming. Also the cheek. Okay.

搜索公号: 【璐璐的英文小酒馆】 查音频节目文稿，了解广阔的世界。跟随我们的脚步，体会英语的温度。 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. Recently, there was a big event in the UK right? You've got a new King finally, after what... 70 years? We've actually had a new King since September, but this time he got a nice, shiny hat. Okay, so the Coronation of the new King加冕礼. You mentioned you've technically got a new King in September, does that mean officially or legally as soon as the Queen died that automatically made Charles the King？ Yes. There's no period in Britain where we don't have a King or Queen. It happens automatically. 所以英国的君主制, 君主立宪制是君主一直有在位的, 一个君主去世之后, 马上就是自动下一个继承人就会... who's after Charles? That would be William. And then it would be Charles his grandson, George. I see. If we still have a King or Queen at that time. That's a whole different story. We're not gonna discuss how British people generally feel about having a King or a Queen. But first of all, this all happened 6th May, right？It was a Saturday. It was Saturday the 6th of May King Charles III was crowned at Westminster Abbey. I remember you telling me that you got a holiday. I did get a holiday, we got Monday off. Because of the Coronation. Because of the Coronation. I see, I read a little bit about it, I didn't watch it. But this whole thing seemed to be really complex. So I was hoping that you can walk us through the entire Coronation ceremony. It is very complex. I watched the Coronation from start to finish. It is a very complicated ceremony because the ceremony hasn't changed much in almost 1,000 years, and also it’s mainly a religious ceremony. That's actually my next question. It doesn't look like, for example, president being sworn in. It's not that kind of political or administrative procedures. A lot of it is highly ritualistic, 就是高度仪式化. 这种特别花里胡哨if you forgive my language, it's very elaborate. It is, let’s say it is a religious ceremony. And it’s also important to know it’s a celebration. Because as you mentioned before, Charles became King in September when the Queen died. It was not really the time for celebration. That's why there's always a gap between the King becoming the King and a Coronation. Because the country had to mourn the loss of their previous King or Queen. Now walk us through the ceremony, I've heard there were five parts. There were five main parts, before we start, it's important to note that this is actually a simple version of the Coronation. What is the long version？ The long version is what happened 70 years ago when Queen Elizabeth... Yeah, and that lasted for quite a long time. This one was actually quite short. The Queen's ceremony was actually televised as well, was put on real time TV. That's right, for the first time ever. This is actually something that's a bit more meaningful for me because the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II was actually the first memory of my mom and dad. When your mom and dad were very, very little. They were only about 2 or 3 years old at that time, and they still remember my grandmother actually bought television for this. I bet she was not the only one. This is actually what made television very popular in the UK. You really do like your monarch. Okay, so walk us through the ceremony, five parts. Alright, so first of all, it’s the Recognition. Recognition本意认可的意思, is it just like people recognize him as the rightful King？

全新版块上线！来酒馆听安澜为你讲述英国及世界的传奇晚安故事~关注公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】，获取更多最新资讯文稿！ In all of England, there was no one better with a bow and arrow than Robin Hood. Robin Hood lived with his band of Merry Men in Sherwood Forest. That forest was the King's woods where King John kept his royal deer for hunting. A few years before, King Richard had ruled the land. This King was kind and let the poor come into Sherwood Forest to hunt the deer to feed their families. But the time had come for King Richard and his army to leave England. And then King John became the king when Richard did not return. "Bad King John," as this king would become known by, did not want anyone to come into Sherwood Forest. John wanted all the deer for himself so that he could hunt whenever he wanted. From then on, he declared that anyone seen hunting in Sherwood Forest would be arrested and thrown into prison. Robin Hood did not like that. He moved into Sherwood Forest and dressed in green so that he could hunt whenever he wanted. Other brave men came into Sherwood Forest, too. One by one they joined Robin Hood and became his band of Merry Men. Robin Hood and his Merry Men would hide when rich nobles passed through the woods. Then all at once, they would jump out and rob those rich men. Then he would give their money to the poor starving people. But you can imagine that the rich men who were robbed were not happy! They told Bad King John what was going on in Sherwood Forest. "Something must be done!" they shouted at the King. The King put the Sheriff of Nottingham in charge of Sherwood Forest. It would be his job to catch Robin Hood and throw him into prison! But Robin Hood was too quick and clever. His Merry Men would warn him each time they saw the Sheriff of Nottingham or one of his guards in the woods, and Robin Hood would escape or hide. So the Sheriff came up with a new plan. “I will arrange a great contest,” he said, “to find out who is the best archer in England. The winner will go home with a Golden Arrow.” The Sheriff then said in a low voice, “If I know Robin Hood, he will not be able to stay away from such a contest. And when he comes, we will catch him!”

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Welcome back to Geek Time advanced, we're talking about Otaku culture. Welcome Lulu. Hi, Brad. So I've got a question for you. Have you ever heard of something called Dakimakura？ Dakimakura, you're talking about the body pillow？Dakimakura就是那种怎么说呢？动漫形象设计的那种一人高的抱枕, 人形抱枕, 或者说有你动漫人物的抱枕. Yeah, don't tell me you have one. I did buy two and I was going to give them to a friend as a joke, that I was gonna let him choose which one he wanted. It didn't really ever plan out, but like, it's one of those things that it's not something you really think a lot of when it comes to Otaku culture, but it is one of those things that does come up to the surface every now and then, you'll see things in the news or something like that. But think having a Dakimakura like a human sized body pillow, the girls are often scantily clad. Some people have… Scantily dressed, yeah? Some people have their own Dakimakura harem. Harem? So they will have a lot of different Dakimakura? Yeah, they have like several. You said scantily clad girls, but actually there are also some very popular male version. I wouldn't say no to a very handsome anime character Dakimakura. Why not？I think most people probably don't really take it that seriously, for them, even if you’re an Otaku, it’s just kind of like a collection. It's sort of like paraphernalias, 像周边产品的这种感觉. But some people are very serious, right？I've heard some people married their Dakimakura? There's been a few marriages where people have married their Dakimakura or they've married their video game character. This has been in like South Korea and Japan. Yeah, it may have been in other places as well, but that's just like the two places that I've actually heard of something like that happening. But so far, including the basic episode, we were mostly focusing on Anime Manga and we're mostly focusing on you're into a specific character because she is cute or he's handsome, but it, Otaku, you said it can be about any hobby, right？ There are car Otaku, just about anything can have like an Otaku, train Otaku, Densha Otaku. But one of the most interesting one is military Otaku. So if you're into all these military fad toys and also weapons maybe? Yeah, they'll do cosplay just like anime cosplay. So they'll get like military uniforms, and I've actually walked down one of the streets here and seemed like a shop that had like military uniforms and I was just like. What? It's like almost cosplay stuff and replica guns or weapons. They have something called air soft, and air soft is kind of like a pellet gun. 软气枪. It can hurt somewhat. It's not dangerous or anything. No, as long as you use them properly, they're perfectly safe. But if you shot someone up close and using one of the more high powered ones and they didn't have any protection, you could break the skin, but other than that, they are usually safe and they're not gonna hurt you. They use air soft guns and they have reenactments. This is something similar to the US. In the US there are people who do Civil War reenactments where they actually they play characters from history or they just have like skirmishes or something like that. So basically this is just sort of like reenactment, and people just get into characters, I guess they would perhaps role play a specific historical battle or they might just create a futuristic battle which sounds a bit dark if you do a futuristic war scene. They just do whatever they want to do. They might do like what if scenarios like, what if this side won or what if that side won, and so they might... but they don't just reenact the battle. They like reenact everything that goes along with it. I remember one day I was doing some laundry at a coin laundry shop. Three guys walked in and like their whole military get ups and I was like what is going on？ They take off their get ups to throw in the washing machines because they just came back from doing like one of their reenactments. I was just like, OK

关注公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】，领取全文稿，了解更多有趣的英语资讯~ Hi, everyone. And welcome back to Geek Time. 欢迎回来【极客时间】. Hi, Brad. Hey, Lulu. So I thought in the previous few episodes in this segment, we were talking about these big tech trends like Crypto or Chat GPT, but can I propose a more lighthearted topic that is really core to the geekdom really? Sounds good to me. You know what I'm talking about because... and also you are living in Japan. So I think you're more than familiar with this word that I'm going to say, which is Otaku 宅. So in Chinese we say 宅, in Japanese Otaku, like ‘taku’ is 宅, ‘o’ is just an honorific like御宅族,如果你要翻译的话, I thought we dedicate two episodes to this particular topic. Mhm. I'm sure you have a lot to say, but first thing first, how would you describe the Japanese idea of Otaku. The easiest way to describe Otaku is someone who puts like all of their energy into something that they really like. A lot of people look at it as like an Anime Otaku or a Manga Otaku, but it's not just those things. It could be a lot of different things that are like Otaku. But that's basically how you would describe it. Oh so basically Otaku has nothing to do with stay indoors outdoors, it’s more like an extreme enthusiast of a special hobby. The idea of Otaku is not that you stay at home, but you feel at home when you're doing your hobby. Oh, that's why they say Otaku. 这里要跟大家特别的解释一下, because in Chinese we say宅男宅女, usually it just means shutting type, kind of don't want to socialize with other people, but the original meaning of Otaku has nothing to do with social skills. No. It's more like a die hard fan of something, right? In Japan, someone who stays indoors is called a Hikikomori, which is like someone who stays at home, but like Otaku is just someone who feels at home in their hobby. 所以Hikikomori在日语里面被翻译成中文叫做蛰居族, 就是像冬眠一样, 在家里就是那种完全丧失社会能力的 you know like people who drop out of school and this withdrawal completely from society. That is a hugely negative term, but Otaku is really not or it's becoming less negative. What would you say in Japan? Do you think Otaku, when people say Otaku is it still negative? positive? What about in English? In Japan Otaku is still somewhat considered negative, but it's becoming less so, it's more people are considered to be Otaku nowadays is becoming a more regular thing, so it's less negative, especially with like a lot of foreigners who consider themselves to be Otaku coming to Japan. I think people have started to look at it a little bit less negatively, but also like in America, being an Otaku has always kind of been like a badge of honor. When people started using the word in the US, people started to say “yes I am, and I'm proud of it.” It's like we talked about this before, right. It's like wearing the word Geek as a badge of honor, it's a sense of belonging. All Right. Like when you look at Otaku in the US, in the 80s was... when 80s, 90s, when Sailor Moon and Macross start coming to the US, that's when the Otaku culture in the US started to bloom, very similar to in Japan as well like that's when kind of like in the 80s. Sailor moon and Macross, I've checked中文叫做《超时空要塞》. But then again, I'm too young to know these words. I kind of grew up with the American version of Macross. We called it Robotech, but it was almost the same thing. But that's the thing, right, I mean most people when they think of Otaku, if they are not really familiar with this group or this type of culture, first they think is Manga Anime. 首先还是想到动漫,对吧。 Yeah, like most people when they think of Otaku, the first thing they go to is Manga or Anime people who just get into those things, because I think in Japan those are like the two big groups. You have like people who make their own Manga like Doujinshi. They meet up at… 同人志. Yeah. They have comic meet ups where they sell or pedal theirs or trade theirs to other people. There's some like Otaku groups, we’ll kind of get into that a little bit more later, but groups of people.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】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, everyone. Hi James. So let's go on and continue our talk about vacationing and traveling that we were previously covering. I have a question. Yeah Because when we were wrapping up last time, you were talking about how you traveling is more seen as family event, because if you're just single or if you just got married, you probably don't have a lot of money to travel. And you probably will spend the time working. I have a question then do people generally see traveling as a must or luxury because in Europe, I kind of got the feeling like in the UK and also in, let's say Southern European countries, going on vacation is like their right, every summer they have to do it. It would be pretty awkward, it would be pretty weird if you don't go on a vacation. But what about in America, do people see it as a must or luxury? No, that's completely different. Americans definitely see it as a luxury not a must, not a right. Because for one, a lot of Americans don't really like the idea of something being a must. It goes against like our freedom to choose. But also a lot of Americans they have to work pretty hard to have the life that they want to have. And that means sacrifice since traveling is a pretty big expense that is one of the things that gets sacrificed. It's not unusual to come across Americans who don't travel much or can't travel because they have other things that they need to pay for. They have to feed their kids and other stuff, so it's very much a luxury. Yeah. I think this is why in movies and TV shows it's very common to see the sort of like when an older couple when they both retired, they're like now we can finally travel. Yeah, because they don't have to worry about their kids. Their kids are all grown up. They don't have other responsibilities. So it is usual for retirees to travel a bit more, they have the freedom to do so. So if it's a luxury then do people show off their vacations like to your colleagues? Oh, yeah. Like it's not unusual to... this was almost like we just got back from the Bahamas. Here's a picture of my husband's swimming in the beach. Here's a picture of ...we got really bad.... sun brings addiction, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It goes on and on. So it's absolutely sometimes Americans will talk about and show off about. So you just talked about going to the beach at beach resorts. But sometimes you see in America, people travel not by the usual methods they would have like an RV. Yes, right. A recreational vehicle like 房车. Is that very common, those are expensive, aren't they? They’re very expensive? From my part of the country they're extremely common whether it's the full RV camper or if it's just a camper trailer which you connect to the back of a truck, those are extremely common for upper middle class, suburban or more rural Americans because they want to travel and see nature but they want the comforts of home. I see, and people buy those right, they don't rent RV. Oh, you can rent them, but for the most part people buy them, like a big RV it's about the same price as a house, camper vans are...they're not cheap, a camper van again it’s gonna be $100,000 expense to buy and then you have to maintain them. A camper van. It's just like a smaller version of RV? Yes, so we think of it as the smaller version of it. So when American thinks of an RV think of bus size it's the size of a bus. I see. When we think of camper vans they're much smaller. Like in china I've seen camper vans in china, I can see it's becoming more and more popular to rent one and go on in the countryside and stuff. But I've never seen an RV here, not one. Because they're hugely expensive. I think they cost millions. And they're just hugely huge. They would have a difficult time going on a lot of roads in china. And also in China, we just don't have the infrastructure for RVs like where are you

关注公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】获得全文稿哦~ Hi, everyone. And welcome back to America Under the Microscope. 欢迎回来【闲话美国】. Hi, James. Hi, Lulu. Hi, everyone. Has been a long time. I know. Yeah. I think we've managed to cover a lot of the topics already. So do you have any topic suggestions？ I was thinking that since we have finally reopened the country and we can go places, we should probably talk about vacation and traveling. Yes. Actually that's a great idea. Now the other day you, me and 安澜, we were talking about... in Across the Pond where we're talking about what we would do if we're traveling to other places in the world. So I thought maybe it would be a good idea to talk about how typical Americans travel, or how they see this idea of traveling, vacationing. That sounds great. We should definitely talk about that. But first things first, can I ask you, I mean, this has been confusing me for ages. So the idea of holiday and vacation都可以有假日的意思. But if you say you go on holiday and go on vacation, first of all, do you guys use that？And if so, are they the same？ So this is where it gets a little confusing because Americans would never say I'm going on holiday. It's not an Americanism. We would say I'm going on vacation or I'm going to take a vacation or I have a vacation, these are... we are more likely to use this word ‘vacation’. To an American holiday is Christmas, Thanksgiving. I see, so it's more like this is a public holiday that sort of idea. It's not about you going anywhere. No, because there's like we have a holiday this week, what are you gonna do？Stay home. I see. I see. So now let's talk about vacations. First of all, how long when people say they're going on a vacation？What is the average time they would spend on a vacation. A week.? 2 weeks? I wish it was that long. But sadly, not. Most Americans when they go on a vacation, we think of it more like they're taking a long weekend, so like 3 or 4 days. Because paid holiday... there's not a lot of paid holiday or paid break. Just out of curiosity, you said there's not a lot of paid holidays. So annual leave, the paid annual leave for average American workers. How long is that? It really varies from company to company, but it averages out to 2 or 3 weeks, a year.

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】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】on the topic of 鸡娃 second episode, brought to you by学霸安澜and学渣Lulu. Lulu, there's no way that you are 学渣. Compared to you. I have to say 安澜 is one of those students like别人家里的孩子那种 so always very driven, always very geared on. Very good grades, always getting good grades. All right, I was a bit of a nerd. Yes. I still am so… Okay. So coming back to the topic of 鸡娃, I'm sure your parents didn't have to use that on you. But you notice that in China when people talk about education especially primary secondary education, you hear a lot of these classes, although now there are policies banning them, but this whole cram schools and then tutorial这种补课或者什么培优什么这些乱七八糟的这些东西. Are there similar things in the UK? Yes, I would say you can pay for tutor, it’s relatively common. But generally, it's… if you can afford it, first of all, it's seen as a bit of a luxury. And also it's more around if you're falling behind in your studies, then you might consider getting a tutor. 所以是补差的那种. What about you？You wanna go ahead, you wanna charge ahead to be better than other people. Well, to be perfectly honest, I would say for many people, they don't think in those terms. Because you have to ultimately think what is the purpose of the education is to pass the test. So if it's a case of being the top 1% in the class or whatever, I don't think that really does apply so much in the UK. Obviously there may be a lot of people that do think in those terms; but for a lot of the English people that I know, they don't think in those terms, they just say, okay, you got good grades, you can do this to improve. And that’s it. There's none of this fixation about you gotta be the top in the class because from our perspective, what's the point in being the top of the class？ Because I think it's the whole idea in China we have the college entrance exam, right？高考, because everyone's gonna take that. That's why being the top one or 0.1 percentile is the most important thing because一分干倒一大片的that's the sort of philosophy. But in the UK yeah, you can be top of the class, you can get very good grades, but you are applying ultimately for the universities that you like and you can apply for multiple universities, so can your classmates. So it's not everyone is on that specific path to compete in a specific... I would say that is the thing I have noticed about China is that for a huge population of students, they're focused on a very limited number of places, a very limited number of courses, which we don't really have in the UK, even for Oxford and Cambridge. Some people really want to get into Oxford and Cambridge. Other people don't really want to go into Oxford and Cambridge. They want to go to another university that they prefer. OK, you do have some very good universities in the UK, but let's be honest here, let's be brutally honest, going to Oxbridge is still very difficult and we talked about that in... it’s very competitive. Of course it is, that's why I failed the interview. Yeah, we still remember that, but that's because you didn't really prepare, actually you know what, you can hire a special tutor or a special agency to help you prepare for Oxbridge interviews. 就是你想进牛剑的话, 是有那种专门的不是辅导班就是mock interview.

关注公众号和同名视频号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】，了解更多好文和资讯！ 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. Can I propose a topic actually? Yeah, of course. Alan, you speak very good Chinese. Have you ever heard of the idea of 鸡娃? Yes... You don't sound very sure. I've heard of it, but it's one of those concepts that I don't think really translates into English. So if you're gonna ask me for an English translation of 鸡娃, then I probably would struggle a little bit. It's basically like motivate your kids but like, forcefully. Forcefully motivates your children. Okay. I'm not sure that's the particularly good translation, but I think that pretty much is what it is, isn't it? I would say probably if we have to really translate it, I would go with the idea of a tiger mom. Tiger mom, the sort of Asian parenting, is that not the stereotype? It is a bit of a stereotype, but to be honest, I've lived in the UK and I've lived in China for quite some time now. I think that's a stereotype that is quite accurate in many cases. But the thing is the whole Asian parents, especially Chinese parents, put a lot of effort, put a lot of emphasis on their kids, that kind of leads to somewhat of a misunderstanding. Sometimes our listeners would ask us, do English parents not care about their kids education, just let them run around wild? I know. I have heard some of our fans and also some of my friends have said what does this mean? Does this mean that British parents don't care about their children, is that...? No, it's a completely different mindset. I tell you why I would like to talk about this whole鸡娃 or parents attitude towards education in the UK, because last time I went back to the UK I was with some friends, and one of them has got a school age child whose... I say school age, this kid is about to go to college and start all that. And then you could see when family friends, when they are visiting when if they have a kid of similar age or slightly older, that's what they're gonna talk about. They're not gonna talk about holiday la, la, la. No, they're gonna talk about kids education, university application. Do you have extra credits? Do you have all of that? Of course. That's the same for my family as well because from the sounds of it, my niece is the same age as your friend's child. And we constantly talk about university, we constantly talk about school. But it's from a very different standpoint. It's not that we don't care. I would say it's that we worry about slightly different things. And in today's episode we're gonna explore that a little bit. Yes. But let's have the general tone is parents are parents no matter which culture which country they're from or they're in, they care about their kids education. Of course, and probably a bit of disclaimer as well. Now I don't have any children and I know that you don't have any children, Lulu. So we're not experts, we're not gonna tell you how to raise your child. If you wanna listen to that, there's millions of those podcast all over the world in English and Chinese and Swahili. Every single language has those podcast has those videos. But what we're doing today is just giving you a little bit of our own personal opinion because we been in education for a number of years now. And also being in the two cultures that we can somewhat compare what we have seen and observed. First of all, let's talk a little bit about secondary education system, 就是整个中学的学制. In England, it's a bit different, so for us is very straightforward. We have primary education which is age 6-12 and then 12-15, it’s junior middle school 初中, and then 15-18 is senior, the high school, and then university. In the UK it's not so. It's a little bit different. Partly because England and Wales they have a different education system than Scotland, for example. But just to give you the quick lowdown, you have primary school which is 6-11 or 12, then you have secondary school which