Escape to a New Life— Everyone’s Dream?

A TV series in Wales has become a heated issue by becoming the number one choice for teenagers to watch.

The main character is a young farmer and the series is about country life, making the popularity of the series all the more surprising. The series is calm and relaxing and really the opposite to city life. Escape to a New Life describes the Welsh countryside as a beautiful and peaceful place and its people as very caring and happy.

The series director believes that this is what young people want today. She says the success of the series is because teenagers want a happier and healthier life away from the pressures of deadlines and exams. She figures this series offers a form of escape from their fast and stressful lives.

Despite this, many parents and teachers are worried about the effect this is having on young people. Parents report that their children are just watching this series and neglecting everything else, using Escape to a New Life as an excuse for not completing homework, or refusing to revise for exams, citing a need for a happier and less stressful life.

One father, Paul McGregor, said his daughter Charlotte had changed a lot. He said, “She used to be in the school athletics team and loved the javelin, but now she only wants to watch the TV series and has been dropped from the team. She no longer completes her homework saying it doesn’t matter as she just wants to ‘escape to a new life’”.

Paediatrician, Dr. Elisa Carhart who specialises in child mental health, says that TV can influence young people’s decisions in life, but believes that if a young person reacts as strongly as Charlotte, it’s likely there are other reasons for the change in her behaviour.

Part drama, part dark comedy, new film To the Bone talks about a young woman’s struggle with anorexia (厌食症). Though the film already got generally positive reviews at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, it has caused a hot Twitter debate around whether it could be harmful for those with eating disorders.

Critics of the film have focused on the leading role Ellen: a young, thin, white woman with anorexia. They think there’re some plots that have made eating disorders look like trends instead of life-threatening illnesses. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, anorexia has the highest mortality rate (死亡率) of any mental illness. Thirty million Americans struggle with eating disorders at some point in their lives.

Director Marti Noxon based the film on her own battle with anorexia. She was aware of the film’s potential to trigger harmful effects and then tried to be really careful in the way she showed how Ellen looked. “You want to help other people understand something that they’ve never experienced, but you also want people who have experienced it to feel understood and seen and to give people hope,” she added. “We were balancing a lot. I want to avoid the idea that the perfectionist quality of anorexics is their most obvious character.”

The film caught the attention of Liana Rosenman, who founded Project Heal, an organization that helps eating disorder sufferers afford treatment. “I thought it was very powerful,” Rosenman said. “There is a sense of humor and wittiness in it as well as just understanding what it’s like to have an eating disorder.” Project Heal recently played To the Bone in New York and Los Angeles, but it has faced sharp criticism from members of their community on social media.

The word “ OK”, the most frequently spoken expression on the planet, celebrated its 178th anniversary (周年纪念日) on March 23.

Henry Nass, a 66-year-old retired English teacher, had spent the last few weeks handing out cards supporting “ Global OK Day” in advance of the coming anniversary.

The term “ OK” was born in the 19th century. Late etymologist Allen Walker Read found the twoletter word in 1839, when editors at The Boston Morning Post signed off on articles as “ all correct” with an “ OK” or “ oll correct”.

The word made it into print on March 23 of that year in an article against an editor in Providence who had said, wrongly, that a group of Bostonians heading for New York would pass through the Rhode Island capital. “We didn’t say a word about our group passing through the city of Providence,” The Boston Morning Post reported. “O. K. — all correct.”

The humour of the Providence-Boston joke has been lost to history — but the word OK took off from there, soon meaning agreement, acceptance, satisfaction, quality or likability. In 1840, it served as a slogan (口号) for President Martin Van Buren’s unsuccessful re-election campaign. OK was picked up by telegraph operators as an easy abbreviation (缩写词) to say they received transmission. “Buzz Aldrin’s first words spoken on the moon were ‘ OK. Engine stop,’” says Allan Metcalf, author of “OK: The Improbable Story of America’s Greatest Word”.

Modern texting has produced a new generation of abbreviations — BTW (by the way) and LOL (laugh out loud) among them, but none has replaced OK. That’s why many people support the English teacher’s call for an OK birthday celebration.

“We happen to know the exact date and place of the very first OK and that’s not very usual for many words, so why not celebrate that day?” says Metcalf.