Hi, welcome back to Happy Hour.

Before we know it,it's going to be the Chinese 七夕again, some call it the Chinese valentine day.Even if you don't know the full background story for this festival,I'm sure you konw it's a love story.Since love is one of the fundamental and eternal themes of humanity,whether it's the Prince and Princess living happily ever after in the Disney version,or it's about ordinary people in our lives finding their soul mates. We have all heard our share of love stories, so let us begin today's episode with a story.

In the ancient city of Babylon lived a dashing young man called Paramus and a lovely young girl called Thisbe, they grew up together in connected houses, so their families actually shared a wall.

Naturally they grew up and fell in love with each other.But their parents had a long standing rivalry and they forbade the young couple to be together,but that didn't stop them. Through a crack in one of the walls, they whisper their love for each other. One day they arrange to meet under a mulberry tree to state their love and plan their future. Thisbe arrives first,but she sees a lion with mouth bloody from a recent kill. So she runs away leaving behind a piece of her clothes. When Paramus arrives,he's horrified to see Thisbe’s clothes torn by the lion and traces of blood everywhere,believing that a wild beast has killed her Paramus killed himself with his own sword. His blood stains the white mulberry fruits turning them dark.

Thisbe later returns to find Paramus dead body under the shade of the mulberry tree. After a brief period of morning,she stabs herself with the same sword.In the end,the gods listened to Thisbe’s sadness and forever changed the color of the mulberry fruits into the stain color to honor their forbidden love.

This story sounds familiar, right？This is one of the original tragic love stories in of its metamorphosis which later inspired Shakespeare's masterpiece Romeo and Juliet.

Now when people think of forbidden love tragic love stories, one of their go to examples is Romeo and Juliet, but it’s hardly the first. Forbidden love stories are commonplace in folklore and mythology, take Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt and the Roman General Mark Anthony, who loved each other so much that they let their countries into war, or so the Legend goes. Or Paolo and Francesca, the in laws who fell in love and were forever trapped in Dante’s infernal.

And nowadays forbidden love,ill-fated lovers, tragic love stories, they are still a staple in films and literature,they give audiences the chance to experience emotions to the extreme.

Hundreds of years ago when shakespeare wrote about Romeo and Juliet,he created a phrase “star crossed lovers”.It literally means the stars are working against your love.

It is used to describe couples that are just not meant to be together. Actually a 2014 American romantic tragedy film about a star crossed couple was called the fault in our stars. In English,you can also use the word ill-fated.So the fate is against this relationship.Or similarly,you have doomed. History and the fictional world are filled with these tragic love stories,forbidden lovers that often leave one or both of the characters lovelorn.

So let's take a look at a few love stories where a happy ending just never came.The first one is from a famous Chinese art house film.This couple might not be star crossed,but their story definitely falls in the category of forbidden love.

This is In a Mood for Love. The story is set in 1962, Zhou Muyun moves into a Hong Kong apartment with his wife who is often absent.He soon finds his schedule similar to that of his neighbor Su Lizhen, whose husband is also away frequently.They both come to the realization that their partners are having affairs with other people.So these two main characters both betrayed by their partners start to develop feelings for each other,the more their relationship deepens,the more obvious it is that they are feeling something more than just passion for each other.Yet neither of them is willing to compromise their loyalty and fidelity to their partners.So the whole movie is filled with constrained passion and a sense of melancholy.

If zhou Muyun an Su Lizhen were not together because of their own principles,some lovers are not meant to be together because of more external reasons like social stigma,like Ernest and Jack in Brokeback Mountain. Under the sprawling Wyoming’s night sky, two cowboys Ernest and Jack find themselves pulled towards each other.They know that the society, the other side of Brokeback Mountain would never accept them. Both men are married and gay relationships weren't exactly welcomed in 1960s of America.

But their feelings persist long after that short summer they spent together. While watching tragedy unfold,you will experience a deep sense of despair.There are some lovers that are just not meant to be together.

Sometimes we will spend the rest of our life mourn the love we have lost.If the relationship between Ernest and Jack in Brokeback Mountain is becoming more and more accepted by society, what about the relationship between humans and artificial creation？

Here I'm not talking about the latest Sci-Fi stories like West World or Ex Makina with the flashy AI technology, but rather a 1990s film Edward Scissorhands.

In its beautiful fantasy romance you see Edward,who's essentially an artificial being created by an inventor,fall hopelessly in love with an innocent young girl Kim,who doesn't seem to mind all the sharp scissors he has for hands.But still what kind of future could a romance between an artificial man with scissor hands and a real girl have.In the end,it was still a regretful story about the love that could never be, about the love of your life that you never had the chance to embrace.

After these fictional stories,I would like to finish today's episode with a real life story between Edward and Marla. The holocaust doesn't seem like the proper setting for a love story.But Edward and Mala fell in love during their imprisonment at Auschwitz.

With the help of a sympathetic guard, Edward and Marla walked out of Auschwitz together in disguise.But their short lived freedom ended when a Nazi border patrol arrested them as they tried to cross into Slovakia. Instead of being killed on site,they were sent to the Death Camp. The guards held the couple in different cells on the same block.Edward would communicate with Marla by whistling a love song out of his window. During his imprisonment,he carved her image on the wall with the date they were arrested, July the 6th,1944.On September the 15th, the same year,the Nazis decided to execute them separately. But the couple had other plans.She cut her wrist before her execution, he kicked away the bench under his feet to hang himself. And they remained deeply in love till the day they died.

I think the reason why people love tragic love stories, why would we believe couples like牛郎 and 織女would be granted a chance to meet once a year.It's perhaps that we all have that little part of us that believes in love in the purest form. Or maybe it's just because the love that we never got the chance to have often tends to be the one that haunts us throughout our life.

So as we're approaching...I just want to say that consider yourself extremely lucky if you have already got your happy ending, and treasure the person that you've decided to spend your life with,because many never got the chance.

So what is your favorite tragic love story to share？Let us know in a comment section.

I'll see you next time.Bye.

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