 conversation between me. I'm Liz Wade and this is Adam Navas. Hello Adam. Hello Liz. I never know where to point but let's just do a little dance instead. And this is a real conversation between two native English speakers and today we are going to be talking about or having a conversation about the program Rat Tribe, the story of Beijing's underground cities. And if you have not had a chance to listen to that program in one of our many many places where you can find it many places. Yes you can go to our website at www.spotlightenglish.com where you can follow along with the words to the script and then also listen along or you can do the same thing on YouTube as a video and you can follow along there and listen to the audio and anywhere you get your podcasts. So if you have like a podcast platform that you prefer find a Spotlight English on there download that and that's how you can listen. 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You're a smart person listening. So anyway let's now we've got that all housekeeping. Yes let's talk about Rat Tribe. Rat Tribe I know I have to say Dan wrote this program and when he told me about this idea he had I was a little nervous about the name because especially I mean I imagine all over the world but Rat doesn't exactly have the best connotation. Yes usually rats are associated with disease and decay. Yeah and just generally gross. I mean you don't want to see a rat but this is this is not what I think of these people. No no no associating that with people is not necessarily positive. I will say right off the bat which is a nice idiom for idias right off the bat at the very beginning I will say I feel uncomfortable referring to this group of people as Rat Tribe but that is what the the name is there isn't another name because I looked I tried to find another way to refer to these people. Well let's unpack where the name why they come up with that name. Right okay so I will say it's not about disease or no anything anything actually negative. Right so this program is about people who in Beijing especially live underground and it's a it's a much cheaper place or a much cheaper cost of living right in a place where cost of living is very expensive. Right and it's but it's just underground and I think that's probably where the the rat part comes from is that you know rats often like they like dark spaces they like you know yeah. Right so it really just tells the story of why these people are living that way and what their living condition is maybe you want to take it and yeah describe why they live underground. Yeah so in cities around the world over the last probably 20 years there's been a lot more job opportunities in cities than in rural or country areas so a lot of people have moved to cities cities have gotten bigger because that's where jobs are but that also makes the cost of living and in this case specifically rent or owning a home very very expensive and in Beijing they had prepared these underground bunkers in case of war and so they had all this space and all this room that was originally meant to protect in case bombs fell and you the people would be saying. Right and there's like government bunkers and personal bunkers and like so many bunkers. Yeah and then the government realized oh we the war that was anticipated never came so then they started to uh say okay they started to turn these into places people could rent and I don't know if it was unofficial at first people just started to use them. I think it was official at first because like these places were not actually meant for people to like live. Right. They were meant for people to hide. Well live but only under war yeah under for a short time. Right exactly so even like yeah there's there's not they converted like like food storage spaces to. Yeah very small small spaces that were hard to maintain so there was some moisture which is what a word that means like water all around. Yeah. Not like you know you're not swimming you're not in water but it's it's just kind of humid so there's like kind of water in the air yeah water in the air that's that's a better way of saying because it's underground it's underground there's not uh there's not movement of air to keep things dry and of course there's not sunlight to keep things dry and that was that was something that I thought I think I could I don't need a big space to live I'm okay with a small space but without sunlight I don't know if I would like that that was the thing that I thought I don't know and now of course people don't live I mean people come out during the day right then we're going into like why do people live in these right because I don't think it's anyone's first choice good point to live underground good point um and I so why would why would someone these stories because of course we we didn't write these stories I mean we put them in this program but there there has been a photojournalist who collected these stories and followed the people who live down there these stories are one not all the same it's not you know like I but also they're all different ages of people in all different parts of their lives with different goals yeah but part of living underneath there is maybe saving the money or just living a simple life there's one couple a story that I read about a couple who they have a big rural farm they live out in the country they have a house I believe it's even paid off and they enjoyed their life but they wanted to move to the city and I think they I don't remember exactly but they maybe have a job in the city and they just wanted to live there for a little bit yeah so they moved into this underground bunker and that's where they live because they choose to yeah my favorite story was the the young man who had dreams uh of you know he needed to do this in order to save money because I think he wanted to do some creative work but right he wanted to be an actor right what from Mongolia yeah well really got got me was his effort that he put in to not uh to to appear just like everyone else he was clean when he when he left he was clean he was well dressed uh no one would know that he lived underground and I think it made me think about what I judge how I judge people based on their appearance sometimes negatively and I think oh that person doesn't have nice clothes they must be you know not have a lot of money or I think I might do the opposite though and that's what made me think like oh they they actually look very nice but maybe they live underground I I don't know right you assume something about them I make assumptions about people like we all do yeah this is exactly um I I also read this original story um and I think it mentions it in the program as well but his parents like uh found out where he lives and his dad cried because he was so sad that he had to live that way and you know the son is saying well no I'm choosing to do this right it's that's really hard you know because you're you it's it's go it goes into your assumptions about how someone lives and maybe do they choose to live this way or not or anything right what it means you know the meaning associated with that especially with parents and children right yeah it's really tough when like you do want to live in the in a bigger city and there's just nowhere to live yeah and additionally um this okay so this program does talk about the stories of people who live there but there's also another layer on top of that in that these are not actually safe places to live right um they if there were a fire or a flood there's not a sort of alarm system to make sure people get out and there's not an easy way to empty people out of these and so actually um pretty recently within the last couple years or so the government has said you can't live there anymore and they are working on kicking people out but if people are choosing to live there and they're making these decisions um who's right I don't know it's yeah it's difficult and and who's who's in charge right sometimes sometimes we we value the individual choice and we say you know it's amazing that you are following your dreams like there's a great quote at the end of the program that talks about the the people who come here and live this way they all have dreams and they're following their dreams and I want to say yes that's great but at the same time I think well maybe the government is is actually looking out for the health of society and yeah and that's the that's the parent in me thinking that I think yeah I think so I think um but there's something to be said about um you know a place to live that you can afford that has respect and that doesn't you know that you know and that maybe isn't permanent like a lot of those people are not planning on living there permanently it's just a step right now right to have that planned I don't know it's a it's a hard thing for me to even think about I I know that I have um like a certain privilege right that means that I don't I don't have to experience that and I think it's hard to to um to have an opinion on those things yeah just because yeah I think that's I don't know I don't know we're outside that you know like to be living there and that's what we like to do in spotlight we like to tell the stories and we do like to have opinions and be hopeful but we also like to recognize where when we can stop and we want to hear from you you know if you're not Beijing we hope there are listeners and watchers uh in Beijing or in in in different cities so if you are if you will if you have lived in a place we would love to hear from you in the comments tell us kind of why you would make that choice um yeah and what your plan is because of course it's not just in Beijing right there's lots of different and they're not all they're not all underground like people make sacrifices of time and money and um various kinds to follow their dreams and so how do you balance that like following your dream but also valuing where you are right now and maybe not living underground that's that's an okay choice too right so we would love to hear from you either if you're watching this on youtube write a comment below if you are listening on our website uh write a comment on the script page and uh you can send us an email even at contact at spotlightenglish.com uh we encourage you to listen to this program if you haven't already and uh check us out wherever you listen to your podcasts on youtube on twitter on facebook as we like to say all over the internet all anywhere you are we want to be any social media um we are there for you and uh thank you for listening and until next time listen watch practice and learn spotlight out