【Native Speaker每日综合训练—29系列】【29-07】文史哲_Western Festivals

jay871750293

Official Website: http://weibo.com/u/3476904471

hello, amigos~
Welcome back to the Sunday of Jay~

As you can see in the title, today’s topic is “Western Festivals”, but honestly speaking, limited by my own knowledge and experiences, this topic is only a slight dip into western cultural fields.

Speaker Part, unfortunately not related to the topic, is about film.
Speed Part includes four articles. All four articles are from Wikipedia and each of them introduces one famous western festival.
Obstacle Part further discusses the relationship between Halloween and candy.

Have fun~

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Part1 Speaker

Why We Love a Film That Makes Us Cry

[Rephrase1]

[dialog 6'09]

Mp3:

Transcript:

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/general/sixminute/2013/03/130307_6min_tearjerkers.shtml

jay871750293

Part 2 Speed

Article 1(Check the title later)
Easter

[Time2]

Easter is a Christian festival and holiday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day after his crucifixion at Calvary as described in the New Testament. Easter is the culmination of the Passion of Christ, preceded by Lent (the 40 days before Easter when some Christians eat less food or stop doing something that they enjoy).

The last week of Lent is called Holy Week, and it contains the days of the Easter Triduum, including Maundy Thursday (also known as Holy Thursday), commemorating the Last Supper and its preceding foot washing, as well as Good Friday, commemorating the crucifixion and death of Jesus. Easter is followed by a fifty-day period called Eastertide, or the Easter Season, ending with Pentecost Sunday.

Easter is a moveable feast, meaning it is not fixed in relation to the civil calendar. The First Council of Nicaea (325) established the date of Easter as the first Sunday after the full moon (the Paschal Full Moon) following the March equinox. Ecclesiastically, the equinox is reckoned to be on 21 March (although the astronomical equinox occurs on 20 March in most years), and the "Full Moon" is not necessarily on the astronomically correct date. The date of Easter therefore varies between 22 March and 25 April. Eastern Christianity bases its calculations on the Julian calendar, whose 21 March corresponds, during the 21st century, to 3 April in the Gregorian calendar, and in which therefore the celebration of Easter varies between 4 April and 8 May.

Easter is linked to the Jewish Passover by much of its symbolism, as well as by its position in the calendar. In many languages, the words for "Easter" and "Passover" are identical or very similar. Easter customs vary across the Christian world, and include sunrise services, exclaiming the Paschal greeting, clipping the church and decorating Easter eggs, a symbol of the empty tomb. Additional customs that have become associated with Easter and are observed by both Christians and some non-Christians include egg hunting, the Easter Bunny, and Easter parades.
[Words: 338]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter

Article 2(Check the title later)
Halloween

[Time3]

Halloween, also known as All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly celebration observed in a number of countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows' Day. It initiates the triduum of Hallowmas, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed believers.

According to many scholars, All Hallows' Eve is a Christianized feast initially influenced by Celtic(a member of a race of people who lived in ancient Britain and Western Europe before the Romans came) harvest festivals, with possible pagan roots, particularly the Gaelic(one of the Celtic languages, especially spoken in parts of Scotland and in Ireland) Samhain(the word for November in Irish and Scottish Gaelic. Also, the same word was used for the first month of the ancient Celtic calendar, and in particular the first three nights of this month, the festival marking the beginning of the winter season. Elements of the festival are continued in the traditions of All Souls Day and Halloween.). Other academics maintain that it originated independently of Samhain and has solely Christian roots.

Typical festive Halloween activities include trick-or-treating (or the related "guising" or "trunk-or-treating"), attending costume parties, decorating, carving pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing, visiting haunted attractions, playing pranks, telling scary stories, and watching horror films. Because many Western Christian denominations encourage, although no longer require, abstinence from meat on All Hallows' Eve, the tradition of eating certain vegetarian foods for this vigil day developed, including the consumption of apples, colcannon, cider, potato pancakes, and soul cakes.
[Words: 262]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Article3 (Check the title later)
Thanksgiving

[Time4]

Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada as a day of giving thanks for the blessing of the harvest and of the preceding year. Several other places around the world observe similar celebrations. It is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and on the second Monday of October in Canada. Thanksgiving has its historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, and has long been celebrated in a secular manner as well.

In the United States, the modern Thanksgiving holiday tradition is commonly, but not universally, traced to a poorly documented 1621 celebration at Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts. The 1621 Plymouth feast and thanksgiving was prompted by a good harvest. Pilgrims and Puritans who began emigrating from England in the 1620s and 1630s carried the tradition of Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving with them to New England. Several days of Thanksgiving were held in early New England history that have been identified as the "First Thanksgiving", including Pilgrim holidays in Plymouth in 1621 and 1623, and a Puritan holiday in Boston in 1631. According to historian Jeremy Bangs, director of the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum, the Pilgrims may have been influenced by watching the annual services of Thanksgiving for the relief of the siege of Leiden in 1574, while they were staying in Leiden. In later years, religious thanksgiving services were declared by civil leaders such as Governor Bradford, who planned a thanksgiving celebration and fast in 1623. The practice of holding an annual harvest festival did not become a regular affair in New England until the late 1660s.

Thanksgiving proclamations were made mostly by church leaders in New England up until 1682, and then by both state and church leaders until after the American Revolution. During the revolutionary period, political influences affected the issuance of Thanksgiving proclamations. Various proclamations were made by royal governors, John Hancock, General George Washington, and the Continental Congress, each giving thanks to God for events favorable to their causes. As President of the United States, George Washington proclaimed the first nation-wide thanksgiving celebration in America marking November 26, 1789, "as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God".

In modern times the President of the United States, in addition to issuing a proclamation, will "pardon" a turkey, which spares the bird's life and ensures that it will spend the duration of its life roaming freely on farmland.
[Words: 421]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving

Article4 (Check the title later)
Christmas

[Time5]

Christmas is an annual commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ and a widely observed holiday, celebrated generally on December 25 by millions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, it closes the Advent season(the period of four weeks before Christmas in the Christian religion) and initiates the twelve days of Christmastide, which ends after the twelfth night. Christmas is a civil holiday in many of the world's nations, is celebrated by an increasing number of non-Christians, and is an integral part of the Christmas and holiday season.

While the birth year of Jesus is estimated among modern historians to have been between 7 and 2 BC, the exact month and day of his birth are unknown. His birth is mentioned in two of the four canonical gospels. By the early-to-mid 4th century, the Western Christian Church had placed Christmas on December 25, a date later adopted in the East. The date of Christmas may have initially been chosen to correspond with the day exactly nine months after early Christians believed Jesus to have been conceived, or with one or more ancient polytheistic festivals that occurred near southern solstice (i.e., the Roman winter solstice); a further solar connection has been suggested because of a biblical verse[a] identifying Jesus as the "Sun of righteousness".

The original date of the celebration in Eastern Christianity was January 6, in connection with Epiphany(a Christian holy day on January 6th that celebrates the day when the Three Kings came to see the baby Jesus), and that is still the date of the celebration for the Armenian Apostolic Church and in Armenia, where it is a public holiday. As of 2013, there is a difference of 13 days between the modern Gregorian calendar and the older Julian calendar. Those who continue to use the Julian calendar or its equivalents thus celebrate December 25 and January 6, which on the Gregorian calendar translate as January 7 and January 19. For this reason, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eriteria, Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Serbia, the Republic of Macedonia, and the Republic of Moldova celebrate Christmas on what in the Gregorian calendar is January 7. Eastern Orthodox Churches in Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Antioch, Alexandria, Albania, Finland, and the Orthodox Church in America celebrate Christmas on December 25 in the revised Julian calendar, corresponding to December 25 also in the Gregorian calendar.
[Words: 394]

[Time6]

The celebratory customs associated in various countries with Christmas have a mix of pre-Christian, Christian, and secular themes and origins. Popular modern customs of the holiday include gift giving, Christmas music and caroling, an exchange of Christmas cards, church celebrations, a special meal, and the display of various Christmas decorations, including Christmas trees, Christmas lights, nativity scenes, garlands, wreaths, mistletoe, and holly. In addition, several closely related and often interchangeable figures, known as Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas(the common name for the historical Saint Nicholas of Myra, who lived in 4th century Byzantine Lycia, (modern Turkey), and had a reputation for secret gift-giving. This is as much as is generally known about him in the West, where he is seen as the main inspiration for the character of Santa Claus. Among Orthodox Christians, he is remembered with more reverence and less frivolity.), and Christkind(giftbringer in Southern Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein. Originally invented by Martin Luther, it was adopted in catholic areas during the 19th century, while it began to be gradually replaced by the secular Weihnachtsmann ("christmas man") in protestant regions.), are associated with bringing gifts to children during the Christmas season and have their own body of traditions and lore. Because gift-giving and many other aspects of the Christmas festival involve heightened economic activity among both Christians and non-Christians, the holiday has become a significant event and a key sales period for retailers and businesses. The economic impact of Christmas is a factor that has grown steadily over the past few centuries in many regions of the world.
[Words: 261]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas

jay871750293

Part 3 Obstacle

Article5 (Check the title later)
How Candy and Halloween Became Best Friends

SAMIRA KAWASHOCT 21 2010, 8:57 AM ET

[Paraphase7]

Editor's note: This is the first piece in a series on the history of candy in America. Check back between now and Halloween to read the remaining articles.

Wherever you turn this October, candy beckons. Americans will spend an estimated $2 billion on candy during the Halloween season this year, and here's a fun fact from the California Milk Processors Board: "an average Jack-O-Lantern bucket carries about 250 pieces of candy amounting about 9,000 calories and about three pounds of sugar."

Phew. My molars are hurting just thinking about it. If treats are a temptation you hope to avoid, October is the cruelest month. And I can think of only one place in America where your Halloween composure is unlikely to be ruffled by endless quantities of cheap and glittering candies: the past.

Given the ubiquity of candy at this time of year, it is hard to imagine that 100 years ago, Halloween looked quite different from the candy debauch of today.

The biggest difference was trick-or-treating. This seemingly timeless custom is actually a quite recent American invention. The ritual of costumes, doorbell-ringing, and expectation of booty appeared for the first time in different locations throughout the country in the late 1930s and early 1940s. It wasn't until the late 1940s that trick-or-treating became widespread on a national scale. And even then, candy wasn't the obvious treat.

Kids ringing a stranger's doorbell in 1948 or 1952 received all sorts of tribute: Coins, nuts, fruit, cookies, cakes, and toys were as likely as candy. In the 1950s, Kool-Aid and Kellogg's promoted their decisively non-candy products as trick-or-treat options, while Brach's once ran ads for chocolate-covered peanuts during the last week of October that didn't mention Halloween at all.

It took a while for candy to become what it is today, the very essence of Halloween. Going back even farther to the early decades of the century, before trick-or-treating spread across the land, candy didn't have any special role to play in Halloween observance.

For youth, and especially boys, Halloween was the one night of the year when communities generally tolerated pranking, which might range from the clever or playful to the dangerous or destructive. Mailboxes, fences, streetcars, and gravestones were popular targets. The point was to cause mischief, not to gather treats. Halloween also wasn't a gift-giving holiday, which in the case of Christmas and other early candy holidays provided the candy "hook."

While the hooligans were out wreaking havoc, the more genteel would celebrate Halloween with parties. The menus and décor for these early Halloween festivities emphasized seasonal fruits. Pumpkins and apples were especially important. Making popcorn balls and fudge was sometimes part of the festive activities, but if there was purchased candy along the lines of candy corn or jelly beans, it was an afterthought, just a something over there with the nuts and favors.

When candy makers in the 1910s and 1920s looked for ways to grow their fall sales, Halloween barely registered as a potential marketing opportunity, even though they were already using holidays as opportunities to sell seasonal confections. Christmas and Easter were big candy events, already established with their candy traditions by 1900: boxed chocolates and hard candies for Christmas, jelly eggs and molded bunnies for Easter. Lagging not far behind in importance on the candy holiday calendar was Washington's Birthday, to be celebrated with special marzipan cherries and cocoa-dusted logs. But special candies for Halloween? Not a one.

It was during the 1950s that candy made decisive inroads in dominating Halloween. The rise of trick-or-treating made the holiday the perfect occasion for marketing a product associated with children and fun. But the push from candy sellers was met with equally enthusiastic demand. Candy was easy to buy and easy to distribute, making it a convenient choice for Halloween hosts. And as the numbers of trick-or-treaters swelled, candy was also economical. Small, inexpensive candies became popular, and major candy manufacturers began making smaller candy bars or bags of candy corn.

Through the 1960s, it was still conceivable that some other treat might be offered. It wasn't until the 1970s that candy came to be seen as the only legitimate treat. And while the candy industry reaped the benefits, the immediate impetus was not brilliant marketing so much as rising fears that unwrapped or homemade Halloween treats posed risks of tampering and poisoning. Commercial wrapped candy was the only safe choice.

All of which raises the question: What was the candy industry up to during all those years before we had the license and opportunity to indulge in enormous quantities of Halloween candy? It turns out that in 1916, candy promoters did come up with an idea to launch the fall candy season and boost sales and consumption, but it wasn't Halloween. It was a new holiday invention, uniquely American in its entrepreneurial spirit: Candy Day.
[Words: 810]
Source: The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2010/10/how-candy-and-halloween-became-best-friends/64895/

kimwang53

谢谢jay~ 我最喜欢的anne hathaway~

2.10
1.38
2.22
2.01
1.35

sherlock1992

Thx, jay! 我最喜欢的anne hathaway~

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29-07
Speak:
In this part, they talk about films that make people cry, and analyze the motivation behind this type of movie.

Speed:
2'23''
1'29''
2'23''
2'18''
1'37''

Obstacle-5'17''
MI: this part mainly talks about the birth of the candy tradition during the halloween season.
details:
now: the tremendous consumption of candies in Oct..
past: differences: ToT<recent invention>,
>before 50s, candy wasn't the obvious treat.
>50s, candies dominate halloween because of several advantages.
>60s, transition period of candies.
>70s, the only legitimate treat.<wrapped candy, only safe choice>                    *up to: engaged in                  

疏离无罪

占~~~~THX JAY

speaker:The dialog talks about the movies that make us cry ,the inner motivation that can affect our emotion and the reason why we choose to watch this kind of movie.Ben Hur won the most ever Oscar awards.

01:22
The origin of Easter and the customs of Easter

01:19
The origin of Halloween and activities on Halloween.

01:18
The historical event about the Thanksgiving Day and the US president will pardon a turkey in every Thanksgiving Day in modern times.

01:52
Christmas was celebrated for the birth of Jesus.The date of Christmas was different in different countries andamong religious people.

00:53
The custom of Christmas.

05:26
Main Idea:How candy become a important role in the Halloween.
Every year americans spend lots of money on candy on Halloween.But it is quite different in the past.The trick-or-treating is just a current custom.Moreover candy is not obvious in the beginnig of the  trick-or-treating custom.People also distribute other things to children,candy is never a special role in the past.There are more other customs on Halloween.
The candy becomes important because of the candy makers.They want to raise their sales during the fall season,while Christmas and Eastern are already a candy season.Candy makes itself a good choice for this holiday because it is easy to buy and easy to distribute,and it is also cheap.With the time goes by,Commercial wrapped candy was the only safe choice.

小鱼上树

在大牛的楼下，感觉很好
在yingjie的楼上，感觉更好

29-07

Speaker

Burst into tears-cry loudly

We allow the film to influence our emotions. Cry over thesplit milk.

It’s a cry shame-it's regrettable, unfortunate or unfair

2 338 1min41

3 262 1min08

4 421 2min07

5 394 1min43

Christmas is celebrated around the world because the birthof Jesus. East and West celebrate it on different date because the differencein Gregorian calendar and the older Julian calendar.

261 1min22

Obstacle 810 4min33

People spent 2 billion on candy during Halloween season. Thesecandies have more sugar and calories. 1930s-1940s the treat and trick traditionused non-candy gift. Before that, Halloween was just a perfect time to play foryouth boys. 1950s, the candy industry looked for opportunities to raise salesand candy became friends with Halloween because it’s cheap and easy todistribute

cherry6891

和jingjie邻居 感觉好棒啊

Speaker:why movie make us cry ?because the cenima can get our emotion loose ,or nostalgic about sth.

All our emotions need a catharsis,especially with in this group to have this place to have emotion release.

Then people fins film as a outlet

7  6:04 the Halloween day is less related to sugar before, it used to be a date for tricks of hooligans while party time for genteel.Even people treat sugar but it was popcorn balls and fudge

In 1950 candy made the decisive inroad in dominating Halloween and in 1970 candy came to be seen as the only legitimate treat.In one word,candy industry alway can find way to sell their products

2 2:10 the origin od Easter --commemorating the circifixion and death of Jesus

3 1:40 Halloween,the time in liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead including saints,martyrs and all the faithful believers

--Halloween activities:attending costume party,decorating ,craving pumpkin into lanterns ,lighting bonfires,apple bobbing,visiting haunted attractions

4 2;23 thanksgiving day is a holiday celebrated in US and Canada for the blessing of the harvest and of the preceding

苏错

cherry树下？ 有樱桃吃不？~~~~~~~~谢谢jay~

Speaker:

The film thatmakes us cry

Which film has wonthe most ever Oscar awards?

Because people arelike to have those emotions and let the emotions lose in the film.

React like otherperson and could not say it is a shame.

Speed:

Time2:2’13

Time3:1’41

Time4:2’39

Time5:1’56

Time6:1’49

Obstacle 5’37

amyguoguo

依旧占座先~~~