宫东风英汉对照A计划（6月1日6月31日）..doc

附件1：宫东风老师英汉对照A计划（6月1日——6月31日） 宫东风老师英汉对照A计划第1篇 Holiday Shopping Sprees: China Challenging the U.S.? [1]China’s consumers are at risk of ruining their “saving for a rainy day” reputation with all the cash they burned through during the Lunar New Year, but are they capable of replacing Americans as the world’s most profligate holiday spenders? [2]The seven-day Lunar New Year holiday, also known as Golden Week, is typically one of the biggest spending periods of the year in China. Like Americans at Thanksgiving and Christmas, Chinese consumers greet the arrival of the new year by opening their wallets to stock refrigerators, buy luxury gifts for friends, get new outfits for themselves and splurge on quantities of fireworks large enough to threaten the existence of significant structures. [3]With leaders in Beijing encouraging domestic consumption in a bid to balance the country’s export-dependent economy, this year’s holiday period sparked unprecedented indulgence. Consumer spending over the seven days of Golden Week surged 19% to 404.5 billion yuan, or roughly $61.3 billion, over the same period a year earlier, according to statistics recently released by the Ministry of Commerce. In other words, Chinese shoppers managed to rip through an average of $8.75 billion per day over the break. [4]American shoppers, meanwhile, managed to spend only $7.57 billion per day during their own holiday spree, according to the National Retail Federation. [5]Does that mean Chinese consumers are showing up their American counterparts? [6]Not quite. While the Chinese appear to have spent more, it’s important to remember that the U.S. holiday season lasts two full months—a shopping mall marathon to China’s sprint. And, then, of course, there is the vast difference in population. Per capita, Americans spent $24.50 a day over 61 days—and this in the midst of a glacially slow economic recovery. Chinese consumers, despite the country’s intimidating GDP growth numbers, doled out only $6.