Chào các thính giả yêu mến của chương trình Học Tiếng Anh qua các chủ đề của chương trình học tiếng anh cùng Radiome. Mình là Diệu Hoa.
Hôm nay chúng ta cùng theo dõi tiếp Phần 2 của bài nghe Telling Scary Stories nhé!
Các bạn cùng chú ý lắng nghe với tiết tấu chậm rãi của chương trình Spotlight nhé. Note lại những từ bạn nghe chưa rõ và xem lại ở bản text để làm phong phú thêm vốn từ vựng của mình nhé!

Voice 3  
It is late at night in a small village in Japan. A man named Muso is sleeping. He has travelled all day. Finally, he has found a room to stay for the night. But in the middle of the night, a boy wakes Muso. “We need to leave,” he says. “Why?” Muso asks sleepily. The boy answers: “There has been a death.” The boy is shaking with fear. He continues: “You are a stranger here, and do not know. Frightening things happen in this village after a death. So we must leave.
But Muso does not leave. He is a priest. It is his duty to say prayers over the dead. Later that night, Muso sees a spirit. As Muso watches, the spirit does something very horrible. It eats the dead body. Muso watches, too frightened to move. He has seen a Jikininki – a kind of evil spirit.
Later in the story, Muso finds the Jikininki. He discovers it is the spirit of a greedy priest. The priest stole money from dead bodies when he was alive. As punishment for his evil acts, he became a Jikininki. At the end of the story Muso frees him. But the greedy priest suffered as a Jikininki for 100 years.”
Voice 1 
The story of the Jikininki teaches a simple lesson about greed. But some writers also like to tell scary stories about more complex ideas. A very famous example is by an English writer named Mary Shelley. There are no spirits, or magic in this story. It is about a normal person - a scientist. Christy VanArragon tells the story of Frankenstein:
 

Voice 4  
“Victor Frankenstein was a very intelligent scientist. But he wanted to do impossible things. In his experiments he learned how to give life to non-living things. Using this knowledge, he created a creature from old, dead, body parts. And then he gave it life! The creature was intelligent. It could speak, read and write. But the creature was also very ugly. So Victor told it to leave.
The creature only wanted a friend. But everywhere it went, people were frightened of it. They thought the creature was evil. It began to hate Victor Frankenstein for giving it life. So it hurt Victor. It even killed his wife. At the end of the book, Victor dies. The creature cries over Victor’s body. Victor only wanted to bring good things to the world. But by creating the creature, he destroyed both it and himself. The creature runs away and is lost forever.”
Voice 1  
The story of Frankenstein is not as frightening as other scary stories. Instead, it questions the things people fear. The creature LOOKS very frightening. So people believe it is evil. But it does not want to be a monster.
So, why do scary stories continue to be popular around the world? Neil Gaimon is a British writer of scary stories. In a 2014 TED talk he explained another reason why he thinks scary stories can be good for people. He said:
Voice 5  
“Fear is a wonderful thing in small amounts. You begin the scary story knowing you will come out after a time in safety. It is always good to know that you are still here, still safe. You know that nothing strange has happened, not really. It is good to be a child again, for a little while. It is good not to fear real scary things like governments or relationship or money problems or distant wars. But instead we can fear things that do not exist.”
Voice 1  
Do you like to be frightened? What kind of scary stories have you heard? Tell us what you think! You can leave a comment on our website. Or email us at radio@radioenglish.net. And find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/spotlightradio.
The writer of this program was Dan Christmann. The producer was Michio Ozaki. The voices you heard were from the United States and the United Kingdom. All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight. You can listen to this program again, and read it, on the internet at www.radioenglish.net. This program is called, “Telling Scary Stories”.
You can also get our programs delivered directly to your Android or Apple device through our free officialSpotlight English app. We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye.
Chúc các bạn học vui và đừng quên theo dõi những bài tiếp để ủng hộ chương trình nhé! Cảm ơn các bạn!