DoloresParkAudioComm.pdf

Dolores Park Extra Commentary

Hi it’s AJ and this is a little bit of extra audio commentary for the Dolores Park Video. So

I thought I’d give you some more audio and some more information about Dolores Park.

So in the video you saw the park behind me and I was up at the top of the park. You

can see the park is kind of on the side of a hill, so I was at the top corner of Dolores

Park and then behind me you could see in the distance the skyline of downtown San

Francisco.

So the park is a very interesting cultural place in San Francisco, I feel, because it’s

between several interesting neighborhoods, so you get some distinct groups of people

in the park. And, in fact, what’s really quite interesting is that these people tend to hang

out, to relax, in different sections of the park and I’m going to talk about those sections

right now.

So one section of the park is kind of near the top of the hill and the nickname for this

section is called the ‘Man Shelf’, the Man Shelf, and it’s kind of a joke, a joke nickname.

The reason it’s called the Man Shelf is that a lot of gay men from the Castro

neighborhood come to Dolores Park and they hang out. They stay in this area near the

top part of the park and what they do is if it’s sunny, if it’s warm and sunny, they take off

their shirts, sometimes they wear just little, small, short pants and they sit under the sun

and get a suntan. It’s kind of like the little, you know, gay men area.

A shelf…it’s called the Shelf because there’s a flat part at the top of the hill in the park.

That flat part is kind of like a shelf. So they call it the Man Shelf because a lot of the gay

men go there and hang out in that part of the park. And it’s a little bit of kind of a joke.

It’s not a serious nickname, but it is true you will see a lot of gay men in that area. So

that’s one area of the park.

Then when you go kind of down the hill behind me in the video -- directly behind me in

the video -- there’s a little playground area. There are some swings and other things

and that’s kind of the family area. In that area you usually see small children playing,

families and just lots of children running around. So you’ve got the little family area in

the park there.

And next to that are a lot of picnic tables and in the picnic table area you usually see a

lot of Latino families having picnics having picnics, on the weekends especially. And by

Latino I really mean Spanish speakers mostly from Latin America.

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So in the United States when we say Latino or Latina, but usually we say Latino -- it just

means people from Central and South America and we include Mexico usually in that --

we’re usually talking about people who speak Spanish from the Americas. So you’ll see

a lot of people in that part of the park.

Then when you go towards the bottom of the hill, kind of the opposite corner of the park

from where I was, that’s kind of the hipster area, hipster. Hipster is, again, a kind of a

slang nickname for people who are trying…well, people who try to be kind of cool and

artistic. They tend to be a little bit younger and in San Francisco they dress in black

clothes, usually. They usually ride little bicycles and they tend to focus on, you know,

music, going out to clubs, art, kind of that group of people and they are nicknamed

‘Hipsters’. To be hip means to be cool, to be trendy; kind of the trendy, cool area of the

park.

And then, of course, in the middle of the park it’s kind of more the general area. You

see just a general collection of different kinds of people. There’s also a tennis court

area where you get more athletic people playing tennis.

So in this small, little, park you see a lot of subcultures in San Francisco; lots of different

little subgroups, subcultures of the city. So it’s quite interesting to go to the park and

watch people.

There’s another thing about the park that is influenced by Mexican culture, maybe

Central American culture. And, you know, this park is next to and in the Mission

neighborhood, which is the Latino neighborhood of San Francisco. And, you know, I

noticed when I traveled in Guatemala and Mexico when you go to a park many times

you see people pushing little carts, right? Little carts with wheels and they push them

around the park. And they have a little bell, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding and they’re

selling like ice cream or little snacks and they, you know, push them all around the parks

and sometimes on the streets selling these little snacks.

Well that’s not usual in the United States. We don’t usually see that here, but in Dolores

Park you do see it and it is usually people from Mexico, possibly from Honduras or

Guatemala and they have these little carts with ice cream, usually, and they push them

around, da-ding, da-ding. Sometimes they’re selling tamales.

So it’s quite interesting. It’s a little bit of Latin-American influence that you see there in

Dolores Park sometimes, especially when it’s busy on the weekends. So that’s another

fun thing you will see in Dolores Park.

Finally, another interesting part of Dolores Park is the weather. San Francisco has quite

strange weather compared to the rest of the United States. In fact, San Francisco is the

strangest place for weather I have ever lived. It’s quite strange and strange because it’s

next to the ocean and we get the fog and it’s never hot here. But within the city you

have different weather in different parts of the city and that’s really interesting.

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So, for example, the Mission neighborhood and Dolores Park is the sunniest part of the

city. The reason is there’s kind of a big hill – small mountains – between Dolores Park

and the ocean, so what happens is when the fog comes from the ocean, this cold fog, it

comes, it hits these hills and then it goes around the hills. So what happens is the fog

will go to the north, it will cover downtown San Francisco, the big buildings you saw in

the video and it will go around to the south and it will cover the south part of the city.

But then there’s a little hole, a little section of the city – the Mission and Dolores Park –

that will remain sunny because it’s kind of protected from the fog a little bit. And that’s

another reason that Dolores Park is popular, because it’s much sunnier than other parts

of the city and it’s also a reason that we moved to the Mission neighborhood. It’s a

more sunny location.

We do get fog here still sometimes. Eventually the fog comes over the little hills or the

big hills, rather, the small mountains and it will cover the Mission neighborhood

sometimes, but usually later than the rest of the city. And usually we just get, in general,

more sun here and a little warmer weather than other neighborhoods in the city, so

that’s a little extra information about Dolores Park and about the Mission neighborhood

where it is and where Tamoi and I now live.

So I hope you enjoyed the video so you could see a little bit of the park. I hope you

enjoyed this extra audio to give you extra information. And I hope you’re enjoying the

Power English Lessons, especially.

So I will see you again, have a great day, take care.

This is AJ, bye-bye.

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