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Philanthropy

Panda power

Scepticism about charity starts to give way to generosity
Dec 19th 2015 | SHANGHAI | From the print edition

THE feeding frenzy for the pandas comes at nightfall. People furtively approach them, pouring bags of old clothes down their gullets. By day, the trucks arrive to clean the bears out, leaving them empty for the next big meal. The pandas are plastic. They are large, bear-shaped receptacles, designed to entice people to donate their unwanted garments to those in need. First deployed in 2012, there are now hundreds around Shanghai, often placed by entrances to apartment buildings. They swallowed about a million items of clothing last year.
描写人们在小区捐赠点捐赠的场景。

frenzy: a state of great anxiety or excitement, in which you cannot control your behaviour
e.g. a frenzy of religious feeling/nationalism/excitement/violence;
The speaker worked the crowd up into a frenzy.
furtive: behaving as if you want to keep something secret
同义词: secretive, concealed;
gullets: the tube through which food passes from the mouth to the stomach
clear out: If you clear out a container, room, or house, you tidy it and throw away the things in it that you no longer want.
receptacles: a container for putting things in
entice: try to tempt or persuade sb, usu by offering sth pleasant or a reward
e.g. Advertisements are designed to entice people into spending money/to spend money.
e.g. He enticed the young girl away from home.

The procession of donors feeding trousers to pandas is impressive. But they usually do so under cover of darkness. Charitable giving is not yet a middle-class habit. Many people still feel awkward about it, despite their growing prosperity. China’s GDP per person is about one-seventh of America’s. But in 2014 Chinese gave 104 billion yuan ($16 billion) to charity, about one-hundredth of what Americans donated per person (see chart).
中国的中产阶级还不习惯于捐赠。

under (the) cover of darkness/night: literary hidden by the darkness of night
e.g. They escaped under cover of darkness.

This is partly a legacy of attitudes formed during Mao’s rule, when the party liked to present itself as the source of all succour for the poor (to suggest otherwise was deemed counter-revolutionary). Even until more recent years the party was reluctant to encourage charities, worried that they might show up its failings.
此种态度产生的政治原因。

succour: literary help and sympathy that is given to someone
e.g. They give/bring succour to the victims of war.

The middle classes have worries too—that giving large amounts to charity may draw unwanted attention to their wealth. They do not want to fuel the envy of the have-nots or encourage tax collectors to pay them closer attention. The top 100 philanthropists in China gave $3.2 billion last year, according to Hurun Report, a wealth-research firm based in Shanghai. That was less than the amount given by the top three in America.
中产阶级的担心——引起嫉妒或税务部门的关注。

fuel: to make something, especially something bad, increase or become stronger
e.g. His words fuelled her anger still more.
e.g. fuel speculation/rumours/controversy/fears etc

In 2008 when a powerful earthquake hit the south-western province of Sichuan—the deadliest in China in more than 30 years—it seemed that one positive outcome would be a boom in charitable giving. Volunteers poured into the devastated region and donations filled the coffers of aid organisations. Problems soon arose, however. Embarrassed that private relief efforts were proving more effective than official ones, the government reined in citizen-led organisations.
汶川地震中来自民间捐款引发的问题。

deadly: Causing or tending to cause death;
e.g. deadly poison; deadly weapons
boom: a sudden increase in trade and economic activity
e.g. baby boom; a boom in car sales; a sudden boom in the housing market; the economic boom of the 1950s
coffers: store of money; treasury; funds
e.g. The nation's coffers are empty.
rein in: to start to control a situation more strictly
e.g. The government is reining in public expenditure.
e.g. His administration's economic policy would focus on reining in inflation.

A subsequent succession of scandals about mismanaged funds has not helped the growth of charities either. Even though most of them are well run, caution is sometimes warranted. Swindlers have even spied opportunity in the panda receptacles. Yuan Yuan, the organisation behind the pandas, noticed copycat ones popping up in Shanghai over the past year. Someone devised a scheme for using these as a way of conning people into donating clothes, and into investing in a business which would supposedly make money by reselling them. Returns of more than 10% were promised—much higher than on deposits in banks. Dozens of people fell for the scam, handing over a total of at least 3m yuan to the crook. They got nothing back.
大熊猫捐献遇到的欺诈问题。

a succession of: a number of people or things of the same kind following, coming or happening one after the other
e.g. A succession of visitors came to the door.
e.g. a succession of wet days, defeats, poor leaders;
warranted: to need or deserve
e.g. This tiny crowd does not warrant such a large police presence.
e.g. warrant attention/consideration ;
Swindle: to get money from someone by deceiving them=cheat;
e.g. a businessman who swindled investors out of millions of pounds;
spy: to suddenly see someone or something, especially after searching for them= spot
e.g. Ellen suddenly spied her friend in the crowd.
copycat: someone who copies other people's clothes, behaviour, work etc
pop up: to appear, sometimes unexpectedly
e.g. Her name keeps popping up in the newspapers.
conning: to get money from someone by deceiving them
e.g. He conned me out of £300.
scam: a clever but dishonest way to get money
e.g. He got involved in a credit card scam.
crook: a dishonest person or a criminal

For Yang Yinghong, general manager of Yuan Yuan, this con was just the latest in a series of challenges. Lest people be tempted to put their refuse in the donation boxes, he came up with the panda design and made the animals translucent so that passers-by could see that clothes were piling up inside them. The pandas’ eye-catching visibility has had an unfortunate side-effect, however. Mr Yang says people prefer to drop off their donations at night because others may think badly of them for giving away perfectly wearable clothes.
大熊猫捐献遇面临的其他问题。

con: a trick to get someone's money or make them do something
e.g. a con to make people pay for goods they hadn't actually received
translucent: not transparent, but clear enough to allow light to pass through
e.g. Blue veins showed through her translucent skin.
e.g. The sky was a pale translucent blue.

Despite such middle-class diffidence, the proliferation of the pandas on Shanghai’s streets may reflect a growing acceptance of public displays of charity. The pandas are migrating around the country, popping up in cities along the coast and deep in the interior.
尽管有问题，大熊猫捐献行动还是在全国各地展开。

diffidence: a lack of self-confidence = self-distrust, self-doubt;
e.g. Nate Silver had made a success out of an escape into diffidence. (BBC Mar 20, 2014)
proliferation: a sudden increase in the amount or number of something
e.g. the proliferation of global media networks; prevent cancer cell proliferation; a proliferation of personal computers

Big-ticket donations by rich businesspeople are also becoming more common. When Bill Gates and Warren Buffett hosted a dinner in Beijing for China’s richest people in 2010, hoping to encourage them to give to charity, many billionaires chose to stay away (Zong Qinghou, a drinks magnate, said that philanthropy was just a way to dodge taxes). Some of them now seem less inhibited. In 2014 Jack Ma, co-founder of Alibaba, an e-commerce company, created a philanthropic trust (the firm’s diverse interests expanded further this week with the purchase of Hong Kong’s leading English-language newspaper, the South China Morning Post—see article). Zhang Xin and Pan Shiyi, who are property developers, launched a fund to help poor Chinese students go to universities abroad.
中国富豪的大额捐赠开始变得普遍。

Big-ticket: If you describe something as a big-ticket item, you mean that it costs a lot of money. (mainly AM)
e.g. Supercomputers are big-ticket items.
magnate: a rich and powerful person in industry or business = tycoon
e.g. steel/oil/shipping etc magnate; a powerful media magnate
dodge: to avoid doing sth, especially in a dishonest way;
e.g. He dodged his military service.
e.g. She tried to dodge paying her taxes.
philanthropic: a philanthropic person or institution gives money and help to people who are poor or in trouble
trust: a financial arrangement in which a group of people or an organization keeps and invests money for someone；信托；
lanch: to start something, usually something big or important
e.g. The organization has launched a campaign to raise $150,000.

The China Philanthropy Research Institute estimates that fully 80% of donations by the wealthiest Chinese go to overseas charities. Many may well prefer to give to local causes, but regulations have hindered the development of philanthropy at home. To function as a not-for-profit organisation, charities must have a government partner, which entails the loss of their autonomy. It is also difficult for them to obtain tax breaks for their donors.
国内政策对于慈善造成的障碍。

entail: If one thing entails another, it involves it or causes it.
e.g. Such a decision would entail a huge political risk.
e.g. The job entails a lot of hard work.

But this will soon change. The government published a draft law on charities in late October. Under discussion for a decade, it defines charities broadly, and acknowledges that they can help improve everyone’s quality of life. The law promises to allow charities to register directly, rather than work through an official partner. They may also enjoy tax exemptions. Zhu Jiangang of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou says the law should help reduce the influence of government, and thus encourage charities to flourish. It is expected to be approved soon.
政府正在立法促进慈善事业的发展。

exemption: a part of your income that you do not have to pay tax on
e.g. a tax exemption on money donated to charity

How far the government is really willing to go remains in doubt, though. At the same time as giving charities more space to operate, it is cracking down on non-governmental organisations, wary of foreign influence. Until charities are allowed to develop independently, the wealthy who aspire to be more generous will have few options. Some quip that it is easier to make money in China than to give it away.
由于担心“外国势力”的影响，政府会给予民间慈善组织多大的空间并不明确。中国的有钱人面临着尴尬的局面——捐钱比赚钱更难。

crack down on: to become more strict in dealing with a problem and punishing the people involved
e.g. The government is determined to crack down on terrorism/drug dealers.
e.g. The police are cracking down hard on violent crime.
wary of: someone who is wary is careful because they think something might be dangerous or harmful
e.g. I'm a bit wary of driving in this fog.
e.g. We must teach children to be wary of strangers.
aspire to be: to desire and work towards achieving something important
e.g. college graduates aspiring to careers in finance
e.g. At that time, all serious artists aspired to go to Rome.
quip: to say something clever and amusing
e.g. 'Giving up smoking is easy,' he quipped. 'I've done it hundreds of times.'

From the print edition: China