单身已成商机 巨头纷纷瞄准

背景音乐：MONACA - Weight of the World

朗读音频&单词跟读音频均在会员课程：英文杂谈。请对照学习。

Financial Times/金融时报：

Food companies target China’s surging single economy

With diners gathered around cauldrons of boiling soup, dropping meat and vegetables into the broth, hot pot is a quintessentially communal Chinese dish. But the country’s dominant chain has a new weapon to attract single diners: stuffed bears.

The introduction of large plush toys to accompany solo diners in the some 200 outlets of the Haidilao chain highlights the efforts of businesses in China to take advantage of a demographic shift creating a rising number of single consumers.

Companies have responded to the trend, which mirrors demographic shifts already experienced by China’s east Asian neighbours South Korea and Japan. Japanese chain Muji has introduced smaller rice cookers, ovens and kettles aimed at Chinese singles.

Alibaba created Singles Day each November 11 as a celebration of the unattached lifestyle. It is now an annual consumer juggernaut, racking up Rmb120.7bn ($17.8bn) of sales in China in one day last year.

surge 涌；陡增

diner 用餐者；食客

cauldron 大锅

broth 肉汤；蔬菜清汤

hot pot 火锅

quintessential 精髓的

communal 共有的；团体的

stuffed animals 填充毛绒玩具

plush toys 填充毛绒玩具

solo 单独的

demographic 人口的

shift 转变

mirror 反映

rice cooker 电饭煲

unattached 单身的

juggernaut 巨大的事物

rack up 大量获得（利润）

【直播回放】

六月份我做过一个关于英语学习方法论的讲座。

我用一个小时分享了：

【听】  用讲究的方法，其实可以不费力地“听懂”

【说】  不是练嘴皮，让画面和情境“触发”说英文

【读】  阅读是信息量的最大来源，单词无需死记硬背

【写】  语法究竟为何物？如何轻松攻破？

【福利】 教你避开英语学习的几大普遍误区，提升英语&效率翻倍