初二英语暑期阅读

1 Fast food is fat food Nearly everyone knows McDonald's. There is probably one near your home, right? But McDonald's is a fast food restaurant. When I think of fast food I think of words like "junk food", "poor nutrition (营养)" and "overweight (超重)". Almost everyone says fast food is unhealthy, but they still eat a lot of it. Yesterday I learnt how true this was. At school we saw a video, called "Supersize Me". A man decided to study what would happen to a person if they ate McDonald's food all the time. So, he ate it, three meals a day, for a month. By the end of the month he had put on more than 20 pounds. He had fat in his liver (肝脏) and blood (血液), he lost some muscle (肌肉) and felt sick all the time. The video said that it took the man about half a year to lose the weight (重量). The video also said that America is one of the fattest countries on Earth. About one in every four grown-ups is overweight. Will it slowly get to the schools? Maybe it will. Most high schools already have vending machines (自动售货机) with soda and other junk food. Their cafeterias sell hamburgers, pizzas and hot dogs. Some schools don't even have PE classes. The video is right! Even though there are healthy lunch choices in our cafeteria, lots of students just buy hamburgers. But luckily, we have PE classes. Will the same thing happen in China? When I visited my relatives (亲戚) in Nanjing last year, KFC and McDonald's were really popular. Sooner or later, Chinese kids could end up being fat too. Watch out! David Nai, 13, is an eighth grade student (Junior 2, in China) in Illinois in the US. He writes for Teens to tell us about his life in the US. 2

Man From the Stars Beer and fried chicken — this seemingly unorthodox combo has been the most sought after late-night snack recently in Yang Xiaoqian’s dormitory on the campus of Central China Normal University. ―All of a sudden, on the tables of many dorms and in Weibo and Weixin (or WeChat) updates, the combowent viral,‖ says Yang, 19, a Chinese literature major at the university in Wuhan, Hubei province. Thanks to a South Korean drama currently on air, Man From the Stars, this new mix-and-match junk food trend has become popular among young audiences, despite its unhealthy nature. Indeed, South Korean TV dramas, or K-drama for short, have been a major force in the South Korean pop-culture wave that has captured the hearts of young Chinese audiences. According to iQiyi, a video website that features Man From the Stars, by Feb 15, the number of views for the TV drama hit a whopping 370 million in China, where the drama claimed four out of five hot topics spots on TV and on Sina Weibo on the same day. Yan Feng, professor of Chinese literature at Fudan University, in an interview with Shanghai Morning Post, believes the new wave of South Korean drama is trying to attract a wider audience. 3

―It is interesting to explore what elements of those dramas appeal to audiences. It’s obviously more than just pretty faces and cool poses,‖ says Yan. Echoed by audiences, culture critics, academics and insiders of the industry, youth fantasy, creative storylines, cultural proximity, and well-organized production all add up to K-drama’s recipe for success, along with, of course, those handsome and cute faces dressed in the latest fashion trends. Pretty faces and fashion ―Everyone fancies a perfect partner, handsome or beautiful,‖ says Zhou Ying, professor of TV production at Chongqing Technology and Business University. ―The South Korean TV industry is feeding this need.‖ After Lee Min-ho entered the spotlight for his hit show The Inheritors and appeared on CCTV’s annual Spring Festival gala, he became the most famous South Korean in China. Only weeks later, Kim Soo-hyun, lead actor in Man From the Stars, swept the country. ―It reinforces the fantasy among young people with faces designed for viewers across the spectrum: the next door girl; the rebellious, sophisticated woman; the mature gentleman; little-brother faces. You name it,‖ says Zhou. ―Idol making keeps updating the ” Apart from pretty faces, fashion is another highlight of the series. Each time actors from the series wear a new set of outfits, similar clothes experience a sales spike online, according to Xiao Yi, a Taobao store owner based in Beijing. Zhou says that besides economic gains for South Korean appliances, make-up, food and fashion items, those pretty faces are re-constructing South Korea’s national image. ―South Korea is imagined in accordance with those depictions in TV dramas, which is good national branding,‖ says Zhou. Creative narrations With love triangles, incurable diseases, and Cinderella tales, storylines in