Podcast: Story in the Story (2/26/2020 Wed.)

02:23, February 26, 2020

• 

  Podcast: Story in the Story (2/19/2020 Wed.)

  From the Peoples Daily App.This is Story in the Story.Chinas sharing economy was worth over $400 billion dollars by 2018, an increase of 41 percent year-on-year as 760 million Chinese have paid for shared services or products.In 2010, sharing economy business models started to emerge in China, about a decade later than Europe and the US. However, it wasn’t until 2014 that explosive growth began to occur.Experts have said the annual growth rate in the sharing economy in China should remain steady at around 30 percent over the next three years.The clothing rental business is a relative newcomer to the emerging sharing economy, the concept has grown in popularity for the flexibility and convenience it provides.The rise of several second-hand online trading platforms and the popularity of shared bicycles and cell phone charging towers has eased the stigma usually associated with the sharing economy.While using second-hand products has never been popular in China, more people have been opening up to it in recent years.Today’s Story in the Story looks at the clothing rental sector and how the idea of wearing used clothes has found acceptance among China’s younger white-collar professionals.Clothing orders are taken at the online rental company Le Tote. (Photo: China Daily)As an analyst with an international consulting firm, Fiona Shen earns a salary that is twice as much as her friends and can afford to buy whatever catches her fancy.However, the 31-year-old Shanghai native rarely buys new clothes, preferring to rent them instead.For the past three years, Shen has been saving money and wardrobe space by subscribing to a clothing rental service roughly $75 a month. As part of this package, every week, she receives two to three items of clothing that are in line with the latest trends.According to her, the main reason she has adopted this approach is the convenience and flexibility it affords."Nowadays, when I a...

• 

  Podcast: Story in the Story (2/21/2020 Fri.)

  From the Peoples Daily App.This is Story in the Story.Boxing is becoming popular among Chinas white-collar workers as a way to battle bulging bellies and release pent-up stress.As a fast-growing fitness trend around the globe, boxing, along with other combat sports, such as Muay Thai and BodyCombat, has also become popular among young Chinese people. It has popped up in the form of boutique workout studios such as Uppercut, a boxing studio in Beijing’s Chaoyang district.Figures from Chinese e-commerce platform Tmall show that the purchase of boxing gloves by women increased 75 percent between 2017 and 2018.A report released in March by a retail firm Suning shows that the annual purchases of boxing gloves by female shoppers skyrocketed 354 percent compared to the previous year.Zuo Yunfan works in an office in Beijing and trains three times a week and says boxing has helped dramatically improve his physical strength."Boxing is a well-rounded workout that would benefit everyone. It gets your entire core fully engaged, so it is good exercise for office workers to strengthen the waist and abdomen after a long day sitting still," he says.Today’s Story in the Story looks at the increasing number of fitness gyms featuring boxing programs that have sprung up across China, signaling that a boom is underway.Two foreigners living in Beijing practice boxing in a gym. (Photo: China Daily)Ye Zi, 26, a staff member of Uppercut, says the gym only had a few dozen members when it was founded in 2015. Today, more than 400 people are taking boxing classes in the studio."With the newly frenetic pace of life in Chinas megacities such as Beijing, young people live and work under increasing amounts of stress, which draws them to gyms, where they can let off steam and achieve a balanced lifestyle by exercising. Boxing is a perfect sport to release a lot of that pent-up stress and thats maybe one of the reasons why more and more white-collar workers ar...

• 

  Podcast: Story in the Story (2/24/2020 Mon.)

  From the Peoples Daily App.This is Story in the Story.China has completed the worlds first extremely low frequency, high power electromagnetic wave transmitter for earthquake prediction and exploration of underground mineral, oil and gas resources, said experts in the field.The electromagnetic transmitter can detect low frequency electromagnetic signals in a radius of thousands of kilometers and from a depth of 10 kilometers.With stronger and clearer signals, the areas probed by the electromagnetic wave transmitter can cover all of Chinas territory and territorial waters, researchers said.Previous electromagnetic wave detectors worked only at a radius of several dozen kilometers, reports said.China has become the third country in the world, following Japan and Mexico, to provide earthquake early warning services to the public.Today’s Story in the Story looks at the development of seismic sensors in monitoring stations that detect the waves that emerge from an earthquake before the temblor beginsA Fujian Earthquake Agency employee checks a seismometer, which detects ground vibrations. (Photo: China Daily)Chinese netizens hailed Chinas earthquake early warning technology for sending out alerts to the public seconds before a 4.5 magnitude earthquake hit Tangshan, North Chinas Hebei Province in December.The Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) System developed by Sichuan-based Institute of Care-life alerted Tangshan residents two seconds and nearby Tianjin residents 11 seconds before the arrival of the seismic waves, said Wang Tun, head of the institute.Wang said his institute and Beijing Kuyun Interactive Technology jointly developed the TV earthquake warning function, and the latter installed an artificial intelligence software module to smart televisions and outdoor screens that allow them to provide text and audio earthquake alerts.Early warning messages were also available on cell phones, early warning terminals installed in schools and other pub...