Hello again and welcome back to America under the Microscope. 欢迎你又回到闲话美国 Hello, James.

Hello, Lulu.

What are we going to talk about today, James?

Well, I'd like to start today by asking you a question.

Yeah. Sure.

When you think of an image, a stereotypical, or an iconic American, what kind of image comes to your head?

Ah I think I was having this conversation with someone earlier. I would have to say, cowboy?

That's right. That's what most people around the world would think is cowboys. And that's what we're going to be talking about today.

Oh, fun. Actually, I don't know that much about cowboys. All I know is just this really stereotypical cowboy image or to have all these you know the specific type of clothing and then the specific lines they have.

I know what you're talking about. And we'll talk about that. That's kind of the Hollywood image of the cowboy. Movies about the wild West or the Western parts of the United States from about a hundred and fifty years ago, two hundred years ago. We're a very popular movie genre a long time ago. And these movies really showed the world the image of the cowboy.

But It's more I don't think that would be the realistic situation. Is it more of a romanticized? Would you say that?

Like most things in movies, it’s not exactly like real life. So, in the movies they show cowboys being usually like a hero or a loner hero. Like, by themselves they save the day or they save some farmers from some bandits or bad people and then they do lots of horse riding, gun fighting, or being like manly men.

Very much like the macho image. They also do a lot of dueling.

Like I said that we call that gun fighting.

Oh, what's the difference?

Well, dueling is so, two men have guns, they walk ,they back to back ,they walk a certain distance, turn around, one person fires, the other person fires. A gun fight, you're already at a distance and you're looking each other face to face and whoever pulls the gun fastest. Bang!

So It's more about speed.

Speed, bluffing the opponent.

You were talking about the specific movie genre. Western. What is when Americans talk about Western? What exactly do you mean west of what?

Well the line is specifically the Mississippi river. It’s the west of the Mississippi river which would be a huge piece of the United States. This would be states like Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, California，Arizona, New Mexico and It's a very big part of the country.

That's half. More than half of the country. So, you were talking about the romanticized cowboy image. What about in real life?

Well in real life they're basically just a cattle worker, somebody who takes care of cows.

Cattle means a herd of cows.

Well cattle is the term for cow, like for the agricultural purpose.

To the agriculture purpose. And they are, where were these people originally from?

Well, the idea of cowboy is not actually originally from the United States. It’s more of a Spanish Mexican origin because the Spanish Mexicans, they are the ones who taught Americans their style of cattle working, using ropes, horse riding to take care of cows and Americans adopted this.

When you say Spanish Mexican, is it like mixture? People who sort of intermarried, the Spanish, obviously the Spanish settlers and then the local people.

Well yeah, because Mexico was a colony of Spain. A lot of people from Spain moved to Mexico. Mexico had the native population. They mixed them stuff. It's really a complicated history. But that's enough for now.

So, you said cowboys there are essentially they're not that romantic and ideal there just cattle workers. So, they ride horses to herd cattle. So, it does sound like just a routine work like any other type of job.

Well I mean there are unique skills to this job, like you do need to be able to ride a horse. And a lot of cowboys also know how to use what's called a lasso.

Oh, I know lasso. Lasso is the rope that they use to tie a cow, basically It's like a circle. They can loop. They will throw at the cow and try to tie a cow.

Yeah, they usually throw it around their head or their legs to catch them and so they can tie them down so they can do things like doctor them, give them medicine and so on.

That looks very difficult.

It is an incredibly difficult task. I tried it when I was a kid.

Oh, really why would you try that?

Well, because I come from a family of cowboys. My family had a cattle ranch for generations.

Well. So, we are speaking to a true descendant from cowboys.

I wouldn't call myself a cowboy, but my family was.

Okay. So now tell us about the whole style. I can't wait to discuss their whole ensemble.

Well most people think of cowboys, they think of clothing. And what clothing do you think comes to people's heads first?

The cowboy hat! The special shirt and then the belt and then also the boots.

Yeah. So, let's start with the cowboy hat which is a fairly unique hat. It's a broad brimmed hat. It's kind of sticks up a bit. It's curved. I mean It's functional because It's supposed to protect your head from the sun. But it also is a fashion statement. So, a lot of cowboys will have their work cowboy hat which will be like really dirty dusty broken up. And they'll also have their special occasion cowboy hat which will be pristine perfectly clean and they're really expensive to be honest if you want to buy one. (authentic cowboy hat) If you wanna like a nice quality one.

What about the shirt? I always wonder especially if you see some of the like the typical or stereotypical cowboy shirts, they all very flowery with these patterns.

Well that's the Mexican culture coming to. Now there were stuff that for special occasions. But a cowboy work shirt will be just a simple button down shirt with a collar that's usually kind of thick, protect you from the sun or the cold and the wind and then they usually wear thick jeans like Levis jeans and then they have big leather belts and then uh sometimes you see cowboys with belt buckles that are the size of a small plate.

James, you know that in Chinese, jeans is actually translated into cowboy pants.

Yes, I did know that.

Yeah. So, is that, were they one of the ones to wear jeans first?

Actually no, jeans were originally created for miners.

Ah ok. So that's kind of an interesting I would say an interesting confusion and the boots they were wearing.

Well, cowboy boots are just kind of simple leather riding boots. They're designed for riding horses because you can hook them into the place where you put your feet on the horse and they can protect your feet.

They usually they'll wear like spurs.

(If you're riding) .yeah. If you're not riding ,don't work spurs.

But all of these there are a lot of these are now fashion statements not just functional.

Oh yes. So, a lot of these cowboy fashions. You will see people who in the cities lots of places wearing like cowboy shirts are popular style of shirts for everyone. Same as cowboy boots.

By the way, you have cowboy this cowboy that. Is there ever cowgirl?

Sure, there's cowboy and cowgirl. Cowgirls tend to wear the same style of clothes that are just tailored towards a woman body instead of man's body.

Yeah, but do you actually have cowgirls who work in the same sort of work?

Yes. less common, but they do exist.

Good. So, we still have the advanced episode to go through. So to end the basic episode, James, can you actually teach us some of the words, some of the expressions that cowboys use because I see them a lot in any movies or TV with the idea of cowboy.

Ok, so I wanna give you the cowboy word and let's see if you can guess the meaning. So here's the first one. “howdy”.

“Howdy”just means hi ,how are you?

Yeah.

Ah,howdy.

So we can just when you want ,so people will say howdy . It's usually appeared with the next word. “Y'all”.

“Y'all”is you all.

Yes and this one is used a lot. I use this in class and my students like y’all, what do you mean y’all, how do y’all, hi y’all. Next one, “wet your whistle”.

Wet your whistle? Do cowboys wear like a whistle or something?

No, this means to have a drink specifically alcohol. So, if you want to have a beer or whisky you can see one. that's wet your whistle.

“wet your whistle”. It's more like have something to drink. And so it kind of wet your lips perhaps.

Wet your lips, wet your tongue, things like that. Next one, city slicker.

“city slicker”, something to do with city. I know but not so much the slicker part.

It's a city person, someone who grew up and was raised in a city.

Why would they say that?

It's usually a term because a lot of people who come from this city then move to the countryside or move to a more cattle ranch area. They're not really familiar with how things work, or they might be really inexperienced. So we'll just call them city slickers.

So as opposed to cowboys as opposed to people who are in the countryside. Ah. Is this a little bit of, kind of like in a jokey way?

Yeah, it is. Last one for today, a saloon.

Oh, I know, saloon is where you drink. It's like a Western bar.

Yeah, It's a bar. So, then they'll still use this term today. So, you can go to some parts of rural America, especially places with cowboys and cattle ranches, they’ll actually have saloons. So, say the local saloon and It's a place to have a drink.

I have seen it in some Western films. Ok, so I think we would wrap up here. Next time maybe, James, you can share with us more about the regular work day for cowboys and also some interesting cowboy activities.

Yeah, we can talk about some sports involving cowboys.

Okay. What is your perception of cowboys? Have you ever had any interactions, or do you have a favorite Western film? Let us know in the comment section until next time.

Bye, everyone.

Bye.