Hello again and welcome back to Happy Hour.
Hello everyone welcome to America under the Microscope advanced episode. Hi Lulu.
Hi James.
And we're continuing our talk about camping and we're gonna start off by talking about this outdoor spirit that many Americans have.
Yeah I would say this is quite unique.
It's not completely unique. I mean Australians also have a fairly outdoor spirit too.
Yeah, I guess for Chinese, for us this is quite different.
Yeah, in America I would say this outdoor spirit really will take place in the viewer. A lot of Americans think it's a good thing to go out and experience nature, be in the outdoors, camping, hiking and seeing what's in their surroundings.
Would you say that Americans would prefer outdoors to, like say city breaks when it comes to holidays?
I don't know if I can make that much of a general statement but I would say that that's not uncommon because a lot of people want to get away from the hustle and bustle of a big city, in a more quiet and relaxed natural environment.
That also is because that you guys have a lot of nature.
Yes that's we don't have much for historical sites but we sure do make up for in natural beauty.
And it's also partially because you guys get trained since the very early age.
Well, some of us do because there are a lot of organizations in America that deal with this outdoorsy-ness like boy scouts or girl scouts and there are other organizations too, but those are the two most famous ones.
I have so many questions about boy scouts and girl scouts.
Well good news is I was a boy scout for most of my youth.
Oh really I guess that can in itself be another episode, but today let's just brush upon it and talk about some of the basics. Boy scouts, is that for everyone?
I wouldn't say it's for everyone because you know not everyone's interested in this kind of activity, but it is open to most people and while it says boy scouts, there are programs in boy scouts that girls can also join.
So girls can join boy scouts. What about girl scouts then?
Boys cannot join girl scouts.
That's pretty much …very double standard.
I don't make the rules.
When can you join?
You can start scouting in a very early age like five six years old. You can start with like young children programs and you can do scouting all the way up until you're like twenty one years old.
Is scouting mostly about outdoorsy things like nature and how to survive in nature and all these relevant skills?
Yeah that's a big part of it. So a lot of times you spent in scouting you learn things like how to build campfires, different types of knots, how to tie rope, how to set up your tent. I learned how to use pocket knives and things like this, all these outdoorsy skills.
Who do you learn it from? It's not called a teacher. Is it called like an instructor?
You learn them from our scout masters.
Oh they're called scout masters. And I always remember that a few years ago there was this really popular animated film called UP, and in that film there was this kid Russell.
And he's supposed to be representing boy scouts.
Yeah, he was collecting all these badges. It seems like you complete certain tasks and you get a badge.
Yeah. I think I earned something like twenty four. I don't remember what all of them are, but it's been a long time. But yeah, we do and each badge because a different activity like badges I had, I had a camping badge, I had a wilderness survival badge, I had a cooking badge, I had first aid badge and … That was a pretty long list.
It's really like a gaming experience. Like every time you complete a task, you get a badge.
Well, if you wanna like, because boys scout also has ranks. Like I achieved the highest rank in boy scouts. Yeah.
You really are hard core scout.
Actually yeah, I was. So you need those badges in order to advance in rank.
And do boy scouts for example, do all the members, do they take trips away from their parents?
Yeah, that was the best part.
So basically going out with your friends and for a camping trip.
You are out with your friends, you are out with camp … your scout masters and your trips when you're doing with boy scouts usually have a purpose so you're going to do something when you're out there, like we learned skills when we were out camping. So it was a lot of fun.
Yeah. Sounds like a lot of fun.
On top of scouting there are also just general community clubs like my father is a part of a horse riding camping club.
Oh so they have camping clubs that are gear towards specific skills.
Yeah. There are camping clubs that specialize in camp cooking and they'll do cooking competitions. And there will be camping clubs for elderly people on the list is pretty, pretty well.

Those are very very specific clubs. So these are the organizations that kind of encourage that sort of outdoorsy spirits.
Absolutely.
This is still all just camping, but there are other types, they're more like extreme styles or that variations of camping for example, like back packing.
Yes. Well let's explain the difference between types of backpacking because there's an American style backpacking and one Americans think what a lot of Europeans think of.
A lot of Europeans were probably think of carrying a huge backpack and do city breaks in some of the other parts of the of the world.
We carry a big backpack with a lot of stuff, but in American's mind when you're going backpacking you're going into the mountains for a week, carrying everything with you.
So it's only in the wild, uh in the wilderness. It's only in nature.
So to our mind a backpacking trip is like we're going over the next week to hike one hundred and fifty kilometers in the mountain camping the whole time. It's a pretty hard core activity, yeah.
So did you do a lot of backpacking?
No, I'm not a big fan of it because I like hiking and I like camping. I don't like to hike to go camping.
Suppose that makes sense. And what else apart from backpacking?
Well the other one is like snow camping and I've done this one and this is quite literally you are camping in winter in places with heavy snow.
OK. Sounds like torturing yourself to me.
I like playing in snow. It's fun. Uh, but camping and snow brings its own level of challenge. Obviously the cold is one, building a fire is really challenging on snow.
Yes. How do you even do that?
This will sound a little bit strange but you put wood on the snow and then you put a metal pan on the wood, and then put the fire, more wood in the pan and build a fire in the pan.
Uh, so you kind of have like a pedestal and then you put …
Yeah but it will melt the snow below it.
And and I've also heard of something called no impact camping. Is that more about environmental protection?
Absolutely. This is about a type of camping style when people go out to nature and try to leave as little trace of them being there as they can. They take … the basic idea is everything you take in, you bring out. and I do mean everything.
What? So you mean if you go to toilet, you have to carry that stuff with you?
Yeah, you wouldn't leave your number two in the nature.
Okay that certainly is really zero impact camping. Oh another thing that has been quite popular in recent years is called glamping like glamour camping.
I just learned of this not that long ago. So glamping is basically doing outdoorsy activities but not exactly with the …
Roughing it.
Yeah that's a good way you're going back to that word. Yeah you have these like modern facilities, like a fancy tree house.
Yeah it's more like a resort but it's set in nature.
That's not camping at all.
But that's more my style of camping. I would love to go glamping. So after all of these talk about camping itself, let's talk about one other thing. And nowadays as a lot of Chinese tourists they go to United States or to go to places like Australia, they like to rent something called RV like recreational vehicle. So they, it's basically, it's like a mobile home. Right? So they just …
Basically it is a house on wheels. There are really big cars or in some cases they look like a bus and inside they have a small kitchen, bedroom, toilet, shower all these kind of facilities and many campsites have special spots for RV that you can connect the power and water so you can use them. Obviously that stuff is not free, you do have to pay for that.
That's also a variation of camping. I mean you don't sleep outside but you still go around in nature.
Well I disagree with that. I think this kind of camping is taking your home with you. But this is, this is actually very expensive because if you could buying an RV, it is really expensive. And there are some Americans that, this is their retirement plan. They buy an RV so they can travel around the country and when they want to visit their family, they just bring their RV in front of their house and park it.
You can park it there and plug into water and electricity. But RV, I mean yes for sure, it's quite expensive to buy. But to rent, it's quite practical. You can rent it because if you think about traveling around as for example, as a Chinese tourists if you travel around the United States, you will have to pay for hotel and all that. But if you rent an RV you can get everything done. Essentially it is everything together. It's your transport, it's your lodging, everything together.
Yeah, there are a few down sides of that, but it is entirely possible to rent them and be more affordable than buying one if you live in America. And it is a good way to both travel the country and having a place to stay, so … Yeah it's not a bad idea.
On a practical note. Is it easy for Chinese travelers to do that? I mean, do you have to have special license or?
Well it depends. On a smaller RV, you probably can just use a regular driver's license. But the big RVs that at the size of a bus, yeah you'll need a special license to drive those because they are … Well like in China a bus driver needs to be taught how to drive a bus.
Yeah we have a different license for that.
Yeah, same thing for the big long RVs because they're the size of a bus, they are harder to drive.
Um, so I guess if you are interested in traveling in like huge countries, like the united states or Australia, renting an RV would perhaps be an option.
Could do that. Yeah, yeah.
OK, so I think on that note we're gonna wrap up. Hopefully you get, hopefully you've learned a bit more about camping, this big part of American culture in these two episodes. And if you have any comments or if you have any experiences to share, please feel free to leave it in the comment section.
Thank you for listening. Everyone.
I'll see you next time. Bye.
Bye.

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