劉金祥：鄉村振興中的文化力量

劉金In the runup to the meeting, China Daily asked a prominent South Korean teacher to talk about her experiences in promoting educational improvements, business cooperation and people-to-people understanding in her native country and her adopted home

祥鄉I think China should attract even more foreigners, because from my own experience, having a look at the real China, not just the view from overseas, makes a big difference村振"He wanted to go to the inland provinces, and he had some knowledge of Anhui, so he chose Hefei as his destination," Cho said

興中It was the first primary school in the country to do so化力It also extends to boosting Sino-South Korean economic ties and helping the province's poverty-stricken areas劉金We didn't expect that we would come to love the country as much as we do," said Cho, who speaks fluent Mandarin祥鄉Over the last 21 years, South Korean teacher Cho Sung-hye has contributed much to the friendship between the people of her country and China村振"China is developing very fast and will play more important roles in the world

興中The improvement of the people's confidence itself is one of the biggest achievements化力"Nowadays, flights connecting Hefei with Incheon in South Korea are available five days a week, and the situation is improving劉金His book this year, Race, Class, and Politics in the Cappuccino City, is the result of his many years of field research on the issues

祥鄉Whites are the majority now, accounting for 55 percent of the community村振The 14th Street near U Street, a traditional African American neighborhood, is now lined up with hip restaurants and bars in this photo taken on Sunday興中The area, a 90 percent black neighborhood just a few decades ago, was only 30 percent African American by 2010化力Hyra described the massive transformation in the U Street/Shaw area, where the city's once most infamous open-air drug market has become a farmers' market now selling grass-fed beef and homemade duck egg ravioli

The Wharf residential and business project I visited recently is probably one of the biggestThe same urban renewal is happening in other parts of Washington

The U Street/Shaw and 14th Street area has fast been turned into an upscale neighborhood in recent years, with many new restaurants and shops opening and new apartment constructionOnly a short walk from the National Mall, it looks like a good place to live, work and hang outThe area has seen a sharp increase in the white population and skyrocketing property prices, a sign of gentrification in the Washington DCHe saw major issues of gentrification and segregation in Washington beneath the surface of rapid urban renewal

Located in southwest Washington along the waterfront next to the famed Maine Avenue Fish Market, its first phase will open on Oct 12"An effort to reduce sugary drink intake of teenagers is urgently needed," Liang Xiaofeng, deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, saidAccording to the US Department of Agriculture, global production of sugar is up 9 million tons to a record of 180 million metrics tons a year and consumption hovers at the 172 million metric ton level, also a record high levelThe American Heart Association (AHA) recommends that people should drink no more than three cans of soda (about 450 calories) a week, but men drink 175 and women 94 calories a day

One sign says you're looking at 45,485 pounds of added sugar - the amount that Kind says children in the United States consume every five minutesAs early as 2006 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified sugar drinks as one of the main culprits in rising obesity rates

The numbers are spun out by Kind from there: children consume 13"In addition, I have found that sugar imports are increasing

Until the 18th century, when the technology for extracting sugar from cane was developed, and 19th century, when we learned how to get it from beets, sugar was only available when the fruit ripened or the bees got busyAbout 12 percent of children aged 7 to 18 in the survey were overweightJudy Zhu / China DailyA 24-foot-tall pyramid of boxes marked "sugar" in the middle of Times Square makes a point that's kind of hard to ignoreThe world does consume too much "added sugar" - a term the USDA began using in 2000 to help people spot processed foods that have added energy with no added nutrition"Every country that has adopted the Western diet, one dominated by low-cost, highly processed food, has witnessed rising rates of obesity and related diseases," the journal Nature commented recentlyHigh fructose corn syrup, raw, brown and white sugar, honey, maple syrup, molasses make up about 16 percent of the calories Americans consume and have zero nutritional value

As the researchers in Nature put it: "In recent years, sugar has been added to virtually every processed food, limiting consumer choice5 million children in the US are obese, the CDC says, blaming snacks and foods high in sugar and salt

For children aged four to eight, the AHA suggests no more than three teaspoons of sugar a day, about 130 calories of a 1,600-calorie diet1 million pounds of added sugar a day - enough to fill 273 yellow school buses

A can of soda has the equivalent of seven to 12 teaspoons of sugar"A report from a survey of 14 provinces in China found that the daily intake of sugars for Chinese people was lower than the level recommended by the World Health Organization, but for children between the ages of 3 and 17 it was much higher because of the growing popularity of sugary drinks, China Daily reported in May

A display in Times Square includes a sugar tower that is 15 feet wide by 24 feet highIt is made of cartons depicting more than 45,000 pounds of sugar, surrounded by life-size models of "crystallized" childrenThe top domestic consumers, in descending order, are India, the EU, China, the US and BrazilStanding sentinel around the mound are ghostly sculptures of small children, apparently made out of sugar-like granular material, wearing tags that read: "I am 9 years old and weigh 64 pounds

According to the National Soft Drink Association, the industry produces 600 12-ounce cans of sugary drinks per person per year, most of it what they call the full-sugar variety, and supplies more than a quarter of what Americans drinkThe publicity stunt, created by Magnetic Collaborative agency to promote power bar-maker Kind's new line of fruit snacks, which have no added sugar, is meant to sound an alarm

In descending order, Brazil, India, the EU, Thailand, China and the US are the top producersThe survey, conducted in 2014 by China's health, education and sports authorities, found that the sugar intake of males 13 to 17 surpassed 8

"There are now 30 percent more people who are obese than who are undernourishedThe average child takes in 21 teaspoons a day, the AHA says

The white paper went to great lengths to define China as one of the "destabilizing factors" along with Democratic People's Republic of KoreaIt highlighted "more tangible" and "acute" challenges and destabilizing factorsThe legislation provides greater flexibility, responsiveness, and interoperability for training, exercises, and planning on a broader spectrum of security issues by easing restrictions on Japanese Self-Defense Force operations, including the ability to exercise collective self-defenseThis will empower Japan to be an active player at the region and global stages

The white paper, the first after Japan's security legislation went into effect in March, played up the so-called "gray zone" situations, or neither pure peacetime nor contingencies over territory, sovereignty and economic interestsIn its 2016 defense white paper, Japan interferes in the South China Sea

The white paper served as an implementation scheme for the controversial security bills that enable Japan's Self-Defense Forces to play a more comprehensive global military role and allow implementation of the new US and Japan alliance guidelinesIt made irresponsible accusations against China, claiming that China continues to act in an "assertive" manner, including attempts at changing the status quo by coercion

cn]On August 2, Japanese government approved this year's version of defense white paper, which described the security environment surrounding the country "increasingly severe"China's "dangerous acts" in the South China Sea and East China Sea could cause unintended consequences