HOST:
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC – VOA’s radio magazine in SpecialEnglish.
(THEME)
This is Doug Johnson. On our program today we:
Play some music by Pink …
Answer a question about Mother’s Day …
And report about some Americans who went back in time.
Frontier House
HOST:
A recent American television program recorded the experiences ofthree families who traveled back in time to live in the yeareighteen-eighty-three. Sound impossible? Jim Tedder explains.
ANNCR:
The American public broadcastingsystem created the five month long experiment. It wanted to find outif twenty-first century American families could survive on thewestern frontier as it existed in the eighteen-hundreds.Five-thousand families wanted to take part in such an experiment.Three were chosen.
The largest family group — two adults and four children–wasfrom California. The second family of two adults and two childrenlived in Tennessee. The third family was a newly married couple fromMassachusetts. They all spent five months living in Montana, farfrom the modern world.
The television program that came out of this experience wascalled “Frontier House.” For six hours, people watching televisionsaw the families living the same way as people did who first settledin Montana more than one-hundred years ago.
The families were given some supplies at the start. And they weretaught about how people lived in the American west ineighteen-eighty-three. Then they had to build their own shelter,take care of animals, grow their food and prepare it just as if theywere living more than one-hundred years ago.
The families talked to a camera during the filming. Each spokeabout the problems and joys of living on a farm without modernequipment. They found the life extremely difficult. They said allthey did every day was work from the time they got up in the morninguntil they went to bed.
The experience had a huge effect on everyone. The husband andwife in one family separated at the end of the experiment. Anotherfamily was able to survive the five months only by cheating. Theybought extra food and used a few modern devices during theexperiment. The youngest husband and wife in the group were the mostsuccessful. They worked well together as a team.
It was the children who seemed to learn the most from theexperience. After returning to their twenty-first century lives,each said, in a different way, that living on the frontier taughtthem a lot about themselves. They said the experience helped themdeal better with modern life.
Mother’s Day
HOST:
Our VOA listener question thisweek comes from Vietnam. Nguyen Thi Trang Thao asks about Mother’sDay.
Sunday is Mother’s Day in the United States. Mother’s Day iscelebrated in many countries around the world, but not always on thesame day. Some historians say the holiday comes from ancient springfestivals in Greece and Rome. A more modern Mother’s Day began inthe seventeenth century in Britain.
The writer Julia Ward Howe made the first known suggestion for aMother’s Day in the United States. That was in eighteen-seventy-two.She said it should be a day to celebrate peace.
Mother’s Day as it is celebrated today began with a woman namedAnna Jarvis. In nineteen-oh-seven, she held a ceremony to honor hermother at a church in the state of West Virginia. She held theceremony on the anniversary of her mother’s death. Later, she andothers wrote thousands of letters to public officials urging thatthe second Sunday in May be declared Mother’s Day.
President Woodrow Wilson and the United States Congress finallyagreed in nineteen-fourteen. The second Sunday in May became a dayof public expression of love for mothers throughout the country. Itbecame popular for people to send gifts of flowers and candy totheir mothers on Mother’s Day.
Today, children of all ages still give their mothers specialgifts on Mother’s Day. Older children may travel to visit theirmothers. If they cannot, they usually send a special card with amessage of love. Or they send flowers. They also usually call theirmothers on the telephone to wish them a happy day. Mother’s Day isone of the busiest days of the year for America’s telephonecompanies.
Some families get together on Mother’s Day to honor all the womenin the family who are mothers. Many go to a restaurant for a specialMother’s Day meal.
Pink
HOST:
A popular American singer is known as “Pink.” How did she get hername? Is it because of her colorful hair? Mary Tillotson has thatanswer and tells us more about her.
ANNCR:
Pink’s real name is Alicia Moore.She is twenty-two years old. People began calling Alicia “Pink”because of the natural appearance of her skin. Years later, shethought it would be funny if “Pink” also had pink hair.
Music always has been a part of Pink’s life. She says her fatherplayed guitar and taught her songs. She began singing and dancingwhen she was a teenager.
By age nineteen, Pink had recorded her first album. It is called”Can’t Take Me Home.” Three of its songs were hits. Here she sings”There You Go.”
((CUT ONE – “There You Go”))
Pink recently received a Grammy Award for a new recording of thesong “Lady Marmalade” (MAR-ma-lahd). The song was in the movie”Moulin Rouge.” It was a hit for the rhythm and blues group LaBellein the Nineteen-Seventies. Listen now as Pink, Christina Aguilera,Lil’ Kim, and Mya sing “Lady Marmalade.”
((CUT TWO – “Lady Marmalade”))
Pink’s latest album is called “Missundaztood.” She helped writemost of the songs. We leave you a song from that album, “Get theParty Started.”
((CUT THREE – “Get the Party Started”))
HOST:
This is Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program today. And Ihope you will join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC – VOA’sradio magazine in Special English.
Remember to write us with your questions about American life. Wewill try to answer them on future programs. Listeners whosequestions are chosen will receive a Random House Webster’s CollegeDictionary.
Send your questions to American Mosaic, Special English, Voice ofAmerica, Washington, D.C., two-zero-two-three-seven, USA. Or use acomputer to e-mail your question to mosaic@voanews.com. Pleaseinclude your name and postal address. This AMERICAN MOSAIC programwas written by Lawan Davis and Nancy Steinbach. Our studio engineerwas Curtis Bynum. And our producer was Paul Thompson.