In Thailand, people marked the start of the holiday with an underwater pantomime, complete with clowns, lions and mermaids.

在泰国，人们通过水下哑剧来庆祝节日的开始，还有小丑、狮子和美人鱼。

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There were many things to see: elephants, lions, men who flew through the air on swinging bars and funny men called clowns.

有许多事物见到: 象，狮子,飞过在摇摆的酒吧上的空气和好笑的男人男人叫做了小丑.

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And if you think that's a strange phobia, Johnny Depp, who was in the film 'Pirates of the Caribbean', he's afraid of clowns.

如果你觉得那是个奇怪的恐惧症的话，约翰尼·德普，《加勒比海盗》中的影星，竟惧怕小丑。

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But rodeo clowning has become such a valued specialty that most clowns are as young and vigorous as the competitors.

VOA: standard.2010.01.25

All this stuff about Berlusconi and his bunga bunga parties, or Sarkozy and Merkel simpering at each other, the EFSF being a water pistol not a bazooka, these are all just the second and third leads, the clowns gambolling around the central absurdity which every good farce has to have.

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But why the hackneyed shots of screechy cheerleaders, bench-resting halfbacks and literal clowns in the stands mugging like eight-year-olds?

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You'll recall from high school or college how Shakespeare frequently pushes the limits of comedy and tragedy, splicing farce into moments of calamity (the fool in King Lear, the clowns in Hamlet) and pulling back suddenly from near-fatal disaster in comedies (The Merchant of Venice, A Winter's Tale).

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