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Hello again and welcome to America under the Microscope Advanced Episode. Hi Lulu.

On swearing. Hi, James.

On swearing yes.

The beep beep beep.

Why don't we kick off this episode with talking about swearing related to our family backgrounds and how we're brought up because that has a lot to do with…

Individual families.

Yeah, on whether a person swears a lot or not.

You do talk about the word upbringing.

Yeah, at least in my family, we generally as kids we weren't allowed to swear if we would swore as kids, we would have gotten punished for it.

Punished how?

Manual labor.

Ok.

Chores.

Not just told off, actually punished.

Yeah, we were actually punished for although I'd use the f-word once and I got slapped by my dad and I remember that. It really depends. So some parents they don't really punish their kids for swearing and they just grew up for it to be norm and then they might end up using it too much. Also some parents don't watch their own language around their kids and let their kids pick it up. They're more likely use it.

That's what I'm saying upbringing. I think that's not a very culturally specific thing. It's quite a universal thing and it really differs from family to family in China. I have met families that have extremely strict upbringing. Parents don't allow any swear, anything even adjacent to swear words, but then you'll have also families of parents swear, their kids swear. I just see it as normal, they even swear at each other, which to me is just…

Sounds like a colorful Spring Festival.

Yeah. I mean you just talked about how you were brought up. When I was growing up, my parents had such strict rules. In Chinese, even like 讨厌 was classified as swear words.

That's pretty strict.

I was not allowed, I was actually told off for saying that. I learned a lot of sarcastic ways to fight against other people verbally. That sort of help develop my language skills I guess.

I think a lot of people do that in strict families to just find other ways to same mean things.

Yeah, saying without saying it.

It's like you're such, such... You're such a dodo head. People will find a way.

Yeah, exactly. But outside of the family, what about in public? I remember you mentioned last time in the basic episode, you said swearing at work can get you fired.

Again, most definitely. This is a tricky thing because technically swearing is protected as a constitutional free speech. However, there are places in America that would give you a ticket for using these words in public because they can just consider it vulgar. Now if you ever fought the ticket in court,

You probably win.

You’d probably win because the government can't make any laws that forbid you to use words, but they still exist in places. In general, if you do use them in public, just the community in general is going to give you good looks and not good looks, bad looks. I misspoke.

Yeah, can you repeat that a bit?

Yeah, so if you use these words in public, you're definitely gonna get bad looks from the community. You'll even get some of those people saying like watch your language or there's children around here.

Would you say it's more older people like older people will be more, let's say, more conventional or traditional? They’ll be more against swear or is it the other way around?

People who tend to have more traditional upbringing, some older folks, sure. People definitely have more of a religious background, things like that. My family will most likely just give people dirty looks. They won't say anything because it's not our business. But it's still look at them funny.

But would that change your impression of a person if they swear a lot?

Yeah, I personally think if somebody just swears a lot, they don't really have anything important to say. They're just filling their speech with words and using these bad words to try to make a point instead of just being able to say their points clearly.

Or do it like I do: just say mean things without swearing, without using any bad words. I think that's much more powerful. Yes, guys, I do have a mean streak. Anyhow, back to right now, you do see a lot of swearing on the internet. I would say more so than face to face.

Yea, nothing gets people to swear like anonymity. People online are quite vitriolic because there's no repercussions. They'll say whatever they want and then no one can see. So you'll get people calling other people really bad names for very harsh reasons.

For no apparent reason.

Just because they're different.

Yeah, it's like swearing for swearing sake.

I was like, if someone wants to come to China and learn the worst Chinese bad words, play online games in China, you will learn the worst Chinese bad words that exist.

I do agree with that or not even playing games, go on any of these social media sites. You can see a lot of those, but which brings us to, since we're talking about social media as well. What about this whole censorship of when it comes to swear words, because one of the things we do know that's also why we joke about the beep, the beep, the f-beep, who does those beeps?

The studios themselves do it. So as we talked about in the basic episode was like let's keep this PG or PG 13 which are movie ratings. One of the things they write a movie on is the language they use, the swearing. TV also has ratings. If you use a lot of bad language, you get a higher rating like TV-MA which is the highest, mature in which pretty much is like go nuts. You can say pretty much anything on those.

But does that mean that if it's rated MA, then any of the curse words in it, even the f-word do not get bleeped?

They don't have to be. Now one show, South Park still bleeps them, but they do that on purpose because it's humorous to do so. They don't have to do it if they don't want to.

If you really want to know, if you want to learn swear words, guys, if you want to learn like really a very… I would say it's a very different type of humor. I don't think it's everyone's cup of tea.

Definitely not.

But South Park they really perfected swearing.

Yeah, but swearing on TV actually has become a little bit more relaxed. Like when I was growing up, you never heard swear words on TV shows that just was not a thing. But now even on regular TV, you'll start hearing more and more words, even all the way up to the s-word, which is becoming more prevalent in a lot of TV shows.

What about reality shows or let's say talk shows? When the host invite guests or when you're just having a reality show with like regular people, then how did they control them? Do they have to tell them…

Usually just bleep them. But in some cases they get told. It really depends on what the target rating the show is going for, what time of day it's going to be on TV. So if it's gonna be on late at night. You have a lot more leeway. Because later at night kids aren't gonna be watching. If it's gonna be on TV in the middle of the afternoon, they're gonna really enforce that swearing because they want a lower rating. It's more attractive to advertisers.

So far we've spent two episodes talking about swearing and it just seems like average Americans don't really swear like that, but then why do we see all these TV shows and movies filled with people swearing or at least try to swear whether they get bleeped or not?

Simple, escapism. They like to vicariously lives with the people on the screen. They wish they could do that. They wish they could say whatever they want to get away with it. It's kind of relaxing. So that's why we have it so much, so prevalent in these media because yeah, we don't use them in daily life, but it does mean some people want to get a release out of it.

That is true actually. I've watched some British TV series. I remember there was one called The Thick of It, that TV show was filled with swear words. One particular character like you said, curses like a sailor. He's a politician.

We will take curses like the English.

Which brings us to the last question. Would you say that based on your experience or observation, would you say that British people that you met probably use a bit more swear words or they're more relaxed when it comes to swear words compared to average Americans?

The ones I've met in China? Yeah, they swear a lot more than Americans do.

Honestly, my experience was both. I would say for me as an outsider looking at the 2 groups, I would say that you guys are using very different swear words.

I know. I take a fellow host with Anlan. He doesn't really use them that much.

I don't think I've ever heard Anlan swear. Anyhow, it really depends on your upbringing, the crowd that you're rolling with. So share with us your upbringing if you said a bad word when you are growing up, did you get punished like me and James or get told off, get blamed? Or were your parents ok with it? Let us know in a common section and share with us your opinions on swearing. And on that note we will end today's show and we will see you next time.

Have a good laughing day.

Perhaps not, bye everyone.

Bye.