Mythical creatures and folklore

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Hi everyone and welcome back to America Under the Microscope. 欢迎你又回到闲话美国. Hi,James.

Hi LuLu.

What are we goning to talk about today?

Well, I was going to ask you, do Chinese parents ever tell stories to children about like magical creatures in order to teach them a lesson?

Yeah, I think if you're talking about sort of folklore or legends or mythology, yes, we have lots of those. But I mean, if they want to scare kids into doing something that's usually some scary characters.

I see. Today I kind of want to talk about that kind of folklore and these kind of creatures that we talk about in English to get kids to believe or do something.

Folklore就是民间传说. I think in America you do have quite a few of those that are quite local to America.

Yeah, I think so. Maybe Canada too, but yeah.

On top of my head, is this thing that you always see in a lot of the TV shows and films is when little kid when they lose a tooth, and there's something like a fairy?

Ah, the tooth fairy.

就是牙齿仙女. What is that about?

So it’s a way to get rich as a child.

You actually get money?

So what you do is when your baby teeth fall out, you take that baby tooth, clean it, you don’t want blood on your pillow. And you put it underneath your pillow at night when you go to sleep, and the next morning you get to wake up and you'll find some money in place or maybe a toy.

Oh.

Mostly money.

This is such a foreign idea, because in China it's not, I mean, losing your teeth that's not really achievement, is it?

No, it's something that's going to happen no matter what.

Exactly. Are you saying that you will get money as a kid for each baby tooth you lose?

Yes, for each one.

That's a lot of teeth.

Yeah, so when I was a kid, we got a dollar.

So, not too bad then.

No. It's not like: Oh, you lost a tooth, here's a hundred, two hundred. No, it's like a dollar.

And who told kids about all these beliefs? Obviously…

Mostly their parents and their parents' parents and so on, and so on, and so on. It just kind of passed down through the generations.

Is it still the same?

Yes, as far as I know, there are still parents that it's like Oh, you lost a tooth, put it under your pillow, thetooth fairy might find it.

Ah, but to be completely honest, if you think about it, it is a quite strange idea, so it's something that comes into your room and steals your baby tooth that you lost.

Yeah, it is. But we have other kinds of fairies too. There's a beer fairy who will magically put beer in your fridge when it's out. You have a cake fairy, which some people's offices have a cake fairy you show up on morning and there's cake there.

You know what, in that case, we have beer fairy and cake fairy as well, they are just called the delivery man.

Yeah.

Show up at your door with beer and cake. When do kids grow out of that? When do they start to realize hang on a minute, there are no tooth fairies?

It doesn't take long. Most kids realize it's their parents pretty early on.

It's kind of like Santa Claus.

Santa Claus is not real?

I'm so sorry I ruined that for you.

Oh, I'm sad. Yeah, it's kind of like Santa Claus.

The other thing is I think this is actually based on a movie. It's something called Gremlin?

Ah, yes. I remember watching that movie as a kid. It was a very popular movie back in the 80s. And gremlins are these creatures that in the movie if they stayed up passed midnight you give them water and a few other things, I don't remember, they turn into these mischievous monsters and they cause all kinds of problems.

That's very interesting. So it's something that just a character in the movie.

Yeah.

But then it's sort of got into the popular belief. Now it's becoming a thing.

Right. So whenever we have like mechanical problems or problems with the machine, Americans will say it's like there's a gremlin in the car, so meaning that your car's not working or there's a gremlin in the computer.

So they are actually in the language as well.

Yes. So we now use them as part of our language and to this day we use it to describe problems. Now it only works for things that are like mechanical or electrical devices, things like this.

Was that like a horror film?

Kind of, it's like how does the best way to describe it, like a children's horror film?

Oh, I see, it's kind of like exaggerated.

Oh, yeah,very much.

It's kind of like funny. So basically if something is wrong with my computer, I can also say there are gremlins in my computer.

Definitely, there are gremlins in your computer.

I suppose I can always check out the gremlin’s movie in a bit, and what else do we have?

We have another kind of creature that we use to describe a person who is very grumpy, who doesn't like things, who wants to take things away. We call this person a grinch.

Is it grinch the one who stole Christmas?

Yes,there's a famous children's story and cartoon called How the Grinch Stole Christmas from Doctor Seuss. All Americans, ages 60 and younger, have either seen this book or seen this cartoon and know about it.

And they also make that into a movie.

I think more than once.

Ah.

And the story it is about this creature who doesn't like Christmas and he steals Christmas from all these people. But we also use grinch to describe any person who's like kind of party pooper…

Or a buzzkill.

Buzzkill.

就是这种让人很扫兴的这种人, 感觉就是别人都开心的时候,然后他突然来给别人扫兴的这种. Now for example, if everyone is having fun and then someone's like er…er… and then you can just say Don't be a grinch.

So it's like you're all very having fun and then someone comes over, Your music is too loud.

Yeah.

So don't be a grinch.

Sounds like a grumpy neighbor.

Yeah, like your teachers can be grinches.

So hopefully we're not grinches. And gremlin, grinch that’s two Gs already.

I can add a 3rd G to that.

Which is?

Gnomes.

Gnomes?

Which doesn't sound with the g because the g is silent,but it's g-n-o-m-e-s.

You mean like garden gnomes? Like which you put in a garden?

Those little creatures that have a little pointy hat, beards, and small little cute human.Yeah, those are called gnomes.

就是小精灵或者有的时候会翻译成【地精】. That's not originally from America, was it?

No, that's originally from Scandinavia.

Yeah. Years back, there was this really popular French film called Amélie and in that there was a like a garden gnome as well. So it's a European thing.

Yeah, yeah, but a lot of things that are European made their way to America as well. So we use the word gnome to describe as a creature that takes things away from you. So for example,

Like a thief.

Kind of like a thief, but not a real thief.It just like we'd use it like if you lost something. Example is like you're washing your clothes, and you wash your socks, you start with 12 socks, and then when you're all done, you find you have 11 socks. So one sock is missing,

So you're accused of gnome.

We said the gnome stole it.

Oh.

So when you lost your phone, you can say that a gnome stole my phone.

So basically a good excuse for your own carelessness.

Basically.

Gnomes.

They like to live in washing machines.

I see, probably because he keeps losing your laundry.

Socks mostly.

But do Americans also have the habit of keeping garden gnomes in their garden?

Some people like having garden gnomes, they like to have little statues put them in their house. It is a popular decorating choice.

See, this is what I don't understand.You say they stole things, you say they steal things, right? But why do you want to put them in your garden so easy for them to steal your things?

Well, those gnomes have already been caught and glued to the bottom, so they can't run away.

It's like to scare the other gnomes away. Perhaps.

That's right.

So you have sock gnomes. I remember in South Park, there's also underwear gnome.

Ah, yes. It's a good way to make money. Don't you know?

But all of these sound quite sort of childish and or at least quite cute, even the gremlins don't sound too bad. Do you not have any scary ones? Because I grew up listening to some of the Chinese folklores, some of these characters can be quite scary, for example, if you don't go to sleep now, then something something's going to get you.

The boogeyman.

Is that the monster in the closet or under your bed?

Yes, the monster in your closet, under your bed, in dark places. It's kind of come and take you away if you don't put away your clothes or do something that you are supposed to do.

So it's like a cure-all whatever you're not doing, then the boogeyman is going to get you.

So most people here might know the term from the action movie John Wick which came out a couple of years ago because in that movie the character John Wick is called the boogeyman.

好像翻成《夜魔侠》, 原来这个就是翻成什么《夜魔》《恶灵》都有的. But what exactly, is it a spirit or is it a monster?

An old witch actually. Because it's a Russian creature or folktale originally.

Oh.

But I'm not entirely sure what it's supposed to be. To Americans for the most part, it's just that monster in your closet or the monster under your bed.

But you never see what it looks like.

We never see it.

I guess if you see it, you are probably taken away.

Exactly, it's poor children.

Yeah, well, you also have the good folklore. All right. So we have covered quite a few, tooth fairy, gremlin, gnomes, grinch and also boogeyman. In the advanced episode, I thought we can move on from creatures perhaps to more people.

Folk legends, I got that.

Yeah.

We can do that.

Okay. So thank you for coming here to show.

Thank you for having me.

We'll see you next time.

Bye everyone.

Bye.