Hello and welcome back to Chatterbox.
My name is Andrew and I'm here with my co-host Anna today who will be joining me in just a second.
If you're new to the show, Chatterbox is the QLIPP series for intermediate to advanced English learners, where we help you improve your English by talking about real world topics using natural everyday language.
Today's topic is street smarts, and we're going to chat about what it means to be street smart, and we'll share some of our personal experiences from living in different cities around the world as well.
In particular, Anna's got some pretty interesting stories to share, I think, so stick around to hear them.
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Okay.
And with that being said, it's time to get started with our episode today.
Let's jump right into our conversation about street smarts.
Enjoy.
Here we go.
Okay, Anna, let's get started with our conversation about street smarts.
And I'll let you do the honors, Anna, and give us the definition.
What does this mean?
What is street smarts?
Street smarts is having practical knowledge, but also an instinct for handling real life situations, especially in urban environments like big cities and towns.
So we could say that it's about being resourceful.
It's about somebody who's really savvy and able to read people and situations really well.
We could say street smarts are like survival skills for an urban environment, maybe like a dangerous urban environment.
I want to put that tag dangerous in there because, you know, I live in Seoul.
It's a mega city.
There are millions and millions of people in the greater Seoul area.
There's like 20 million people that live or something.
It's insane, but it's really, really safe.
And sometimes when people who grew up in Korea they go abroad and they go to Canada or the States or maybe London or something, they kind of get shocked because they're like, oh my God, I'm not used to living in a dangerous place.
And they have to learn how to be safe in a city that...
Well, I would say that you know, it varies from city to city to city.
Some places are more dangerous than others.
But when you come from a safe place and then you move to a place where it can be a little bit dangerous, sometimes that can cause some problems.
So, just like when we go into the forest for a hike or to go camping, we need to be prepared to deal with some of the dangers that we could encounter right.
Like, In Canada, if I go on a hike, maybe I could possibly encounter a bear.
So it's good for me to have bear spray so that if I run into the bear I can scare it away and make it run away with this kind of bear spray.
Just like we prepare for hunting wilderness adventure, we also need to prepare and take some precautions when living in a city that isn't like one of these really nice East Asian cities that are very, very safe.
Unfortunately, around the world, I think this is the exception and not the norm.
And most cities around the world do have some level of danger.
So yeah, street smarts then, is knowing how to survive and thrive and live well in a city where sometimes, it can be a dangerous place to live.
So Anna, can you tell us where you grew up?
Was it a big place, a small place, dangerous place?
I can't exactly remember when you were growing up where that was.
I grew up in a town, a small town in a fairly rural area.
So I definitely didn't grow up in a big city.
And for me that makes a big difference because also, I would say, street smarts is something that we tend to use to refer to young people rather than somebody who's in their 50s or 60s or something like this.
Because by that point, you're kind of expected to know a little bit more about what you're doing.
But for me it's kind of like imagine if you had an 18-year-old person and you just took that person and you dropped them in the middle of the big city.
Would they be able to cope?
Would they know how to navigate around?
Would they be able to avoid any potentially dangerous situations, as you said before?
Or Would they survive?
That's kind of the question.
And like you said, actually, I do agree.
And I think it's important to highlight that that it's often about when you're navigating difficult environments or maybe like a dodgy neighborhood or somewhere where potentially there could be a bit of a risk going there.
And you just kind of know your way around and you know how to handle that a big urban area or a big city.
I definitely wouldn't class myself as a street smart person or to have street smarts when I was growing up.
But I would say that when I left home and I went to university for the first time and I moved to a city, small city, but Then you start to see how things work a little bit more.
And then when I moved to Madrid, I definitely had to develop a little bit of street smarts, because you've got things like pickpocketing.
You have to be a little bit careful about where you walk around the city, especially if you're at night a little bit.
So you kind of have to develop a bit of street smarts.
I wouldn't have put myself in that category when I was younger, but now definitely a little bit more.
I'm more aware of what's going on around me.
Definitely.
Yeah, that's very interesting.
I would say in my situation, I grew up in a city of around 110,000 people, maybe.
So like a small city in Canada.
But even though it's a small city, there were still some dodgy neighborhoods and some shady characters.
I had to exercise a little bit of street smarts in my hometown.
And then once I went away to university, then I also moved to bigger cities.
And yeah, yeah.
I guess I went from bigger city to bigger city, eventually ending up in Montreal, where you know there are nice neighborhoods and not so nice neighborhoods.
And there are some shady characters, some people that you have to be a little bit cautious of from time to time.
Yeah, so I would say probably similar to you.
And I had to develop my street smarts When I was growing up.
It wasn't something like I was born in a bad neighborhood and I just learned how to do it from a child.
I was lucky enough to be quite sheltered in my life.
And then as I got older and I started living in places where there were some shadier neighborhoods, then I had to develop my sense of street smarts.
I want to dig in a little bit and hear about what it was like for you to move to Madrid.
I mean, I visited Madrid.
I didn't think it was too dangerous of a place.
I never felt like I was in danger or anything.
But I have heard stories about pickpocketing in Spain before.
And thankfully, I wasn't the victim of anything like that.
But have you ever had any encounters with anything that you thought was a bit sketchy while you've been living there?
Oh, yeah, definitely.
Definitely.
There are some parts of the city which definitely at night you have to be a little bit careful.
You have to have your wits about you a little bit.
And I know that when I moved here I also was in touch with a lot of other expats that moved here as well.
And the thing that you learn very quickly is you do not leave your bag absolutely anywhere.
You're always careful about your bag.
And I think every single person that I worked with had had something stolen at some point, including myself, within the first three or six months of living there.
You kind of have to go through the experience.
And then once you learn and you get your phone stolen the first time, you're like, okay, that's it.
I'm never having that happen again.
And you just develop it.
It's kind of like a second nature.
And then whenever I'm walking around, it doesn't matter where I am.
It doesn't matter if I'm in the city center a little bit further out.
I'm always watching my bag and I'm never letting anyone near it.
So it's really nice for me, for example, when I go back to Scotland, because I come from a small city in Scotland and I can just relax because I don't have to think about people constantly trying to pickpocket me all the time.
And you can just kind of walk around and, you know, you feel much more relaxed.
It's not got that kind of vibe with it.
But definitely, Madrid is a big European city and you have to have your wits about you a little bit more.
But then London, I would say, is next level, like london's, crazy.
I don't know if you've seen this trend that's happened there, where people go around the city on bikes and if you have your phone in your hand, they drive up to you on a motorbike and they snatch it out of your hand and it's really confrontational and people are in such a shock.
She's like definitely much more street smart than me.
And she's like, oh yeah, if you're in London, you can't walk around with your phone in your hand.
Like you have to have it in your bag because otherwise it would just get stolen, which is kind of crazy, right?
To think like that.
So yeah, just maybe a tip for anyone traveling around London city center just be a little bit careful with your phone.
Wow, that's so wild.
I was just recently at the swimming pool here in Seoul.
There are some outdoor pools that open in the summer and my wife and I were at one the other day.
There are no lockers.
There were no lockers at the swimming pool.
Everybody just leaves their phone on the seating area where you can hang out and do some sun tanning or relax or whatever when they go in the pool.
So there I was actually noting it like this would be a great place if you were a smartphone thief, because there are like hundreds of phones just sitting out here while people are swimming and yeah, it made me feel a little bit uncomfortable, like should I just leave my phone here while I go in the swimming pool?
Like if somebody wanted to steal it they could, but you Yeah, thankfully we don't have that issue in Seoul to the same level that it's in London there.
That sounds pretty intense.
But I think, yeah, that's maybe more the norm around the world, right?
We'd call it like a crime of opportunity.
If there's an opportunity, like somebody leaves their phone on a table and you can just quickly snatch it and run away.
Yep, it'll be gone.
It'll be gone.
Yeah.
It'll be gone.
I mean really honestly.
I think if you're in the center of Madrid and you left your bag on the back of your chair, I don't know how long it would take maybe 15 minutes, half an hour but you can pretty much guarantee that it would be gone.
But I think also street smarts for me is about...
Another example I'll give is when you live in a big city, you kind of get suspicious of people.
So you have this natural sort of skepticism about I'm not sure that this is a good situation or somebody will come up to you.
This is another thing that happens sometimes in the city.
Somebody will come up to you and they'll ask you something.
So they'll approach you.
Once you start living in a city, you get a bit suspicious of this type of thing.
You think I don't know whether they're trying to distract me and then they're going to try and steal my bag, or I don't know what their intentions are.
And in a way it's good because it means that you are sort of paying attention to it.
But sometimes it makes me feel sad, because there are sometimes people that generally just want directions.
You know they're like I'm lost.
Could you help me?
And people are really suspicious of that.
And like a lot of people will just walk past, they won't talk to them.
And I don't know why, but for some reason here in Spain, like all the Spanish grandmas and older ladies, they always ask me for directions.
I'm not really sure why.
But I kind of feel bad because it means that a lot of people just walk past and they don't help them because they're suspicious that they're trying to rip them off or they're trying to distract them.
So that's kind of sad, you know, that aspect of it.
But again, that's kind of part of being streetwise.
You kind of just have to have your wits about.
You sense if somebody's trying to rip you off a little bit or maybe distract you.
And there are just some people that are really street smart.
And I think, maybe to give the example of the kids again, I think some parents feel really comfortable letting their kids go around the city because they are really street smart and they would know how to handle themselves.
If there was potentially a difficult situation or they had a confrontation with somebody they know they would be able to handle it.
Whereas I think there are other children who are just like not street smart at all.
And you would worry about them going out there into the city if something happened, right?
That's kind of how I distinguish it a lot with kids.
Some of them are, some of them aren't.
I would also say I don't know if you agree with me Andrew, that we've talked a lot about urban areas and street smarts in urban areas.
But I think there is also something about people that grow up in the countryside and in more rural places.
I don't know if it's called street smarts but, for example, here I often find that people that have grown up around more of a farm and agricultural life are.
They kind of have a different type of street smarts.
It's not about how to handle the city, but it's about how to handle the countryside, like how to drive a car when you're younger, for example, or how farming works.
It's not just about urban areas.
There's also something that you learn if you come from a more rural area as well.
I don't know how to define that, unfortunately.
No, I think you're right.
Everybody is going to have some specialized knowledge for thriving and living their best life in the environment where they grew up in.
I think that makes a lot of sense.
In terms of street smarts.
I was thinking, as you were talking there Anna, that I believe it really all boils down to awareness.
Being aware of your surroundings and trying to avoid a situation, a potentially dangerous situation, before.
It even happens.
And so I think these days, probably one thing that can actually cause a lot of incidents is people are just not aware of the world around them, right?
Maybe they have their AirPods in while they're walking around.
Maybe they're looking at their phone.
And because of this, like somebody can take advantage of that.
Some like criminal could potentially take advantage of that.
For example, Vancouver in Canada has a really big issue with drugs and homelessness and all of the side effects that come with this right.
Like a lot of petty crime, stealing from stores, maybe muggings.
And a mugging is when somebody comes up to you and says, give me your wallet.
And maybe they'll pretend like they have a knife or a gun or something, right?
A really scary situation.
Thankfully, I've never been mugged.
But I think we can avoid some of these things if we are aware of our surroundings and always be aware like there might be some sketchy character that's going to do something.
So if you're walking at night and you see like somebody coming toward you, maybe a hundred meters away, or you see a group of people, especially right.
If you saw like three guys walking on a dark street, maybe I would cross the road or go the other way.
I'd find an alternative route, route to get to where I'm going, so that I don't even pass them, so that that opportunity doesn't even come up.
And I would never.
For example, if I were living in Canada right now, I would never be walking around at night with my AirPods in.
I wouldn't be listening to Q-Lips while walking home at night in Vancouver, for example.
I'd always want to keep my ears open and be aware of my surroundings so that I could avoid a potentially dangerous situation.
And I see this so much on the confrontations of people arguing or fights or even disasters.
I saw a video the other day of i think it was a ferry, and this ferry got hit by a massive wave and it broke all of the windows and all of this water just gushed into the ferry.
Now, this is not really street smart.
Maybe this is c smart, so we should call it but there were so many people who were just like looking at their phones that didn't even notice that this huge wave had just hit them and they just got carried away by the water and they were all in this really bad situation because yeah, now they're in like this survival situation essentially having to deal with I guess it was the ocean deal with all of this ocean water in the boat, right?
And it was really interesting because you saw half of the people in that boat realized oh no, this is a bad situation.
And they all went to a safer part of the boat.
And other people were there just playing on their phones and not paying attention.
And then boom, they're in this life or death situation.
So to me, street smarts is all about being like aware of potential danger and being very skeptical right.
Here in Seoul, I have one example I can share of in Seoul.
Seoul is a very safe city in general, but there is a common kind of scam.
Especially they prey on foreigners.
And it's a cult that tries to get new recruits to their religion.
And they'll come up to you.
Usually they use attractive girls who are in their 20s, apparently.
And the girls will come up to you and ask you if you can join them for a coffee or something.
And then they try and get you to come back to their church and sign you up for this weird cult.
And this happened to me one time.
I was walking in this neighborhood, where they tend to hang out, and some woman came up to me and she started speaking to me in English and asking me if I knew where this really popular store was.
That is like a landmark in this neighborhood.
And if I could take her there and guide her there.
And so I just answered back to her in Korean, like, why are you asking me in English?
You are Korean, right?
You know this neighborhood?
This makes no sense at all that you would be asking a foreigner how to get to this store in a neighborhood where there are millions of other Korean people around us.
Obviously, something was way, way off, and I just brushed her off and ignored her because...
Yeah, that seemed really sketchy and just so out of the blue.
And then it turned out when I was researching this later that this is actually a really well-known scam and a kind of cult recruiting tactic.
So I'm glad I didn't fall for that.
But we become skeptical of other people when we're living in a big city.
And that does kind of suck because...
There are occasionally times when somebody actually does need help, right?
But because of that skepticism we often ignore those people and just say no to everybody and just go on our own way.
I know.
And it's kind of sad sometimes.
That's kind of what I said before.
But you're right.
I mean, it is about that awareness.
I've had a bad experience in Madrid, actually, and it was because I was not aware.
It wasn't my fault.
I'm not saying it was my fault, but I could have prevented it.
I was wearing headphones, the classic thing that you just said there, Andrew, as well.
I was wearing headphones and I just was not aware of what was going on around me.
And it was really something, a big learning point for me, because it was the first time that something like that ever happened to me.
And after that point I was I don't know if anybody listening to this if you've ever had that experience.
So I'm talking about a mugging here, which is kind of what Andrew said, where somebody comes up to you.
It's a bit more aggressive.
It's not like pickpocketing where you don't see them.
It's where somebody comes up to you and they say okay, give me your bag, or they try and take your bag in a more aggressive way.
And Ever since that happened to me afterwards I was like hyper vigilant all the time.
And this is something that sometimes happens when you have an experience like that is, your body is hyper vigilant for a few weeks.
So any sound or any loud noise can make you feel like there's somebody there or there's somebody behind me.
It was a really difficult experience, but actually what I took from that was I was like that was a really good experience for me, because now I can see that other side of the city and now I'm more street smart as a result.
I wasn't hurt.
They didn't try and do anything too serious.
They just wanted my bag.
It was just a laptop and a laptop is really not that important in the grand scheme of things.
So yeah, I was actually grateful in a weird way for that experience, because it taught me to be a bit more street smart.
If you're walking around at night, don't wear both of your headphones, and just have a bit more awareness about where you're going, you know.
So it was good.
Well, you're very positive.
Well, yes.
Well, now I'm more positive.
At the time, it was a really scary experience, actually.
But I think ultimately it's good.
You know, every cloud has a silver lining.
And I think that was really good at teaching me to be more street smart.
And I think maybe that happens to other people as well.
Sometimes you need a bad experience to kind of be like oh wait, I need to be a bit more aware here, or I need to have my wits about me a little bit more.
Yeah, well, that's super scary.
And I'm sorry to hear that you had to go through that.
And I love your positivity.
You're very good at seeing the positive side of things.
Thankfully, it was just like a laptop that you lost and it didn't turn into a worse situation, right.
Exactly.
But yeah, sometimes those are tough lessons that we have to learn.
And I like this expression that I've heard you use a few times in our conversation here.
I thought we could focus in and talk about it a little bit.
It is to have your wits about you, to have your wits about you.
What does that mean if you have your wits about you?
It means essentially to be constantly alert and vigilant, to have your wits about you.
It's a weird phrase actually and quite a difficult phrase.
I imagine if you heard that, you'd be like, what wits?
But it's about being alert, being vigilant, being aware, knowing what's going on around you.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I think these days when we hear this word wit, we think of being witty or clever, maybe funny.
But I think back in the day and this is just coming from my sense guys, I haven't researched this or anything but I feel like back in, like a thousand years ago, when they talked about wit, it was more like your knowledge, right.
So having your wits about you just means being aware and alert and using all of your senses to to help you stay safe, right.
So yeah definitely, when you're living in a big city that has some crime or some danger, then you want to have your wits about you so that you can avoid the dangerous situations.
Well, Anna, I think that will bring us to the end of this episode for now.
But of course, as always, we'll be continuing the conversation over on our Discord server.
And I would love to hear our listeners' thoughts and opinions and takes about this topic, about street smarts, because we have listeners from all over the world, probably from some very safe places and probably some from dangerous places.
So i'd love to hear what you guys think about this topic and to join our discord server.
If you aren't a part of it already, we'll put the link in the description for this episode.
Just follow that link and then you can join us on the discord server and we'll continue the conversation there.
Can't wait to hear what you all have to say about street smarts.
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All right, Anna.
Well, I think that's it for now.
Please take care, guys, and we'll catch you in the next episode.
Until then, bye-bye.
See you soon.
Bye.
