Hello, and welcome to a real conversation between me, I'm Liz Waid, and this is Adam Navis.
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, many, many places.
Yes.
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I said that in all the wrong way, but if you're on YouTube, you know what I'm talking about.
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So anyway, now we've got that all housekeeping out of the way.
Yes, let's talk about Rat Tribe.
Rat Tribe.
I know.
I have to say uh, dan wrote this program and when he told me about this idea he had uh, i was a little nervous about the name because especially i mean i imagine all over the world, but rat doesn't exact exactly have the best connotation yes, usually rats are associated with um disease and uh decay Yeah, and just generally gross.
I mean, you don't want to see a rat.
But 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 you to use 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 yeah, i tried to find another way to refer to these people, right?
Um well, let's talk, let's unpack where the name, why they come up with that name, right?
Okay, 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 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 um, what their living condition is.
Maybe you want to take it and and yeah, describe why they live underground.
Yeah so, in cities around the world, over the last probably 20 years, There have 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'd be saying there's like government bunkers and personal bunkers and like so many bunkers yeah, and.
And then the government realized oh, the war that was anticipated never came.
So then they started to 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 these places were not actually meant for people to live.
They were meant for people to hide.
Well live, but only under war.
Yeah, under for a short time.
Right, exactly so.
Even like um yeah there's, there's not.
They converted like like food storage spaces too.
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.
Um, 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, water in the air.
That's, that's a better way of saying it because it's underground.
It's underground.
There's not movement of air to keep things dry.
And of course, there's not sunlight to keep things dry.
And 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, 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 to live underground.
Good point.
So why would someone?
Because, of course, we didn't write these stories.
I mean, we put them in this program, but 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.
But also they're all different ages of people in all different parts of their lives, with different goals.
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.
So they moved into this underground bunker and that's where they live because they choose to.
Yeah.
My favorite story was the young man who had dreams of.
He needed to do this in order to save money, because I think he wanted to do some creative work.
Right, he wanted to be an actor from Mongolia.
Yeah, what really got me was his effort that he put in to appear just like everyone else.
When he left, he was clean, he was well-dressed.
No one would know that he lived underground.
And I think it made me think about 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, you assume something about them.
I make assumptions about people, like we all do.
Yeah, this is exactly.
I also read this original story and I think it mentions it in the program as well.
But his parents like 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.
That's really hard, you know, because you're you.
It goes into your assumptions about how someone lives and maybe did they choose to live this way or not, or anything.
Right.
And what that means.
You know and the meaning associated with that, especially with parents and children, right.
Yeah.
It's really tough when like you do want to live 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 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, who's right?
I don't know.
It's...
Yeah.
It's difficult.
And who's in charge, right?
Sometimes 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 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 actually looking out for the health of society and the people in the city.
That's the parent in me, thinking that, I think.
Yeah, I think so.
But there's something to be said about.
You know a place to live that you can afford, that has respect and that doesn't.
You know Well, and that maybe isn't permanent.
A lot of those people are not planning on living there permanently.
It's just a step right now.
Right, to have that plan.
I don't know.
It's a hard thing for me to even think about.
I know that I have a certain privilege that means that I don't have to experience that.
I think it's hard to have an opinion about on those things.
Yeah.
Just because... Yeah, I think that's... I don't know.
I don't know what it's 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 when we can stop.
And we want to hear from you.
You know, if you have Beijing, we hope there are listeners and watchers in Beijing or in different cities.
Yeah.
So 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.
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 underground.
People make sacrifices of time and money and various kinds to follow their dreams.
And so how do you balance that?
Following your dream, but also... valuing where you are right now and maybe not living underground.
That's an okay choice too.
Right.
So we would love to hear from you.
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Spotlight out.
