Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1942 Engel Coefficient

“Chinese people have so many ways to process food ingredients,” Mai Xiaomiao said with emotion.

"It's mainly due to living conditions." Zhou Zhi said, "In ancient times, the methods of preserving food were very limited. For example, vegetables harvested in spring and autumn had to be processed into dried vegetables, pickles, and kimchi; meat had to be made into dried meat, smoked meat, braised meat, ham, fried meat, sausage, etc.; grain had to be ground into flour and made into dry biscuits, noodles, vermicelli, etc. The purpose was the same, which was to store the food obtained during the harvest for as long as possible so that it could be distributed to eat in the season when food was scarce."

"Because food stored for too long will become unpalatable, how to make it taste better is the wisdom of our ancestors. Generally speaking, the longer the history of a region, the better it should be in this aspect."

Mai Xiaomiao tilted his head and thought for a while: "It seems to be true."

"I'll show you how to eat later. In addition to the eight major cuisines, China also has many ethnic minority and local cuisines. Oh, by the way, do you know the Engel coefficient?"

"I don't know, what is this coefficient?"

"The Engel coefficient was proposed by German statistician and economist Ernst Engel in the mid-19th century, who investigated the consumption of Belgian families with different incomes, studied the impact of increased income on the structure of consumer demand expenditures, and proposed a principle with regularity."

"It basically means that the less a family or individual earns, the greater the proportion of their income spent on food for survival. For a country, the poorer it is, the greater the proportion of each citizen's average expenditure spent on food."

"It seems to make sense. According to this theory, the Engel coefficient of the United States is relatively low, while the Engel coefficient of China is relatively high."

"Yes, although China's Engel coefficient has been declining over the past decade, the previous base was too high, so the value of this coefficient is still quite high."

"From 1978 to 1984, my country's Engel coefficient remained high at over 60 percent. From 1985 to 1992, it dropped to over 40 percent."

“A 20 percent drop over more than ten years is not bad.” Mai Xiaomiao actually had no idea about the economy, but a drop of one-third from the original base number was a remarkable number, if only from a statistical point of view.

"But in recent years, my country's Engel coefficient has shown an upward trend. It dropped from 47 in 1985 to 42 and 43 in 1987, and recently rose back to 47."

"Ah?" Mai Xiaomiao frowned: "Does that mean the living standards of Chinese people have deteriorated in recent years?"

"Actually, it's not." Zhou Zhi was a little amused. "In fact, the most fundamental reason is that China is a country of gourmet food. People's pursuit of gourmet food is much stronger than that of Belgium during Engel's time. When life gets better, the first thing they do is adjust the proportion of gourmet food in their living expenses. This adjustment is even higher than the growth rate of income, which has caused the Engel coefficient to increase instead of decrease."

"I see." Mai Xiaomiao smiled and said, "For example, if a person's salary used to be 100 yuan, of which 30 yuan was spent on food, his Engel coefficient was 30%; now his salary has increased to 200 yuan, but his food expenses have increased to 100 yuan. Although his income has increased, his Engel coefficient has increased to 50%!"

"That's about what I mean." Zhou Zhi said, "But this is for most urban residents in our country. For places like Lianhe Township, the Engel coefficient was basically over 70% last year, and many families could even say it was 100%. This year, things are finally starting to change."

"It's hard to understand this way of life if you don't come and see it yourself." Mai Xiaomiao frowned slightly: "I didn't understand why you came here before. Only after I came here myself did I understand how amazing your approach is and how remarkable this progress is."

"You and Renzhong are both great!"

"Hahaha, Xiaomiao, you're great too! When we get back, the primary experimental environment should be up and running, right?" "It should be almost there. But I still have to make it clear to you that the current primary cellular neuron network, with the same resources, cannot compare to the traditional linear computing model in terms of computing power. It can only... 6%... ah, at most 70%, that's the limit."

“Didn’t we agree on this before? What we are solving at this stage is the problem of whether or not there is one.” Zhou Zhi laughed and said, “The highest can actually reach 70%? Xiaomiao, your model is amazing. Do you know what I reported to the Chinese Academy of Sciences? 40% hahahaha…”

"You don't trust me enough!" Mai Xiaomiao gently hit Zhou Zhi's hand with the leek leaves in her hand and said angrily.

"You can't blame me for this. It's mainly because I was led astray by Director Song." Zhou Zhi said, "Because he told me that with the current level of the country, the maximum we can achieve is 35%, and I reported it five points higher."

After saying this, Mei said happily: "If we can reach 70%, Director Song will be so happy that he will burst into tears. This will double the computing efficiency!"

"Not necessarily. We won't know until we get back." Mai Xiaomiao affirmed, "But it won't be as low as 40%."

"I was a little nervous when I followed you out to play, but now I don't seem to be so nervous anymore."

"Don't be nervous, I'm going to reward you with a good meal today!" Zhou Zhi thought of something: "Oh my goodness, this reminds me of the time when the local tycoon came to our country to buy missiles."

"What kind of story is this?" Mai Xiaomiao obviously had never heard of this story.

When Zhou Zhi started telling the story, Mai Xiaomiao couldn't help laughing, especially the last line that Zhou Zhi said vividly, "Take your money and leave, don't touch my missiles with your dirty hands", which made him laugh so hard that he fell over.

This was clearly a chore, but Zhou Zhi made it so funny that Mai Xiaomiao could hardly stop laughing.

6◇9◇Book◇Bar

It is not difficult to prepare lunch. I have saved the smoked meat for today's meal, and now it is just right for stir-frying leek stems. In addition, the petiole part of the leek and the watercress can be made into mixed pickles, and the leaves can be kept for wrapping barbecue, and can also be used for stir-frying later. Then, the leftover potato cubes can be used as a base to make a pot of glutinous rice, and then everything is ready.

Apart from the konjac rice and some cold dishes, everything else had to wait until they came back. So after preparing the ingredients, Zhou Zhi and Mai Xiaomiao took over the convenient reclining chairs, each holding a cup of milk tea, basking in the sun and enjoying the scenery in a rather petite manner.

"Monkeys!" A group of uninvited guests came to the vines by the stream in the distance. They probably didn't expect to see several horses here. They were startled at first, and then began to jump and call on the tree, trying to shake the branches and vines, as if to scare the horses away.

The big blue horse was knowledgeable and experienced. It snorted and slowly led the herd of horses away from the tree to the lawn to eat grass.

The monkeys seemed to think they had won. They shouted excitedly a few more times, began to crawl around on the vines, and then grabbed something and put it in their mouths.

"Is this a macaque?" Mai Xiaomiao felt that she seemed to have shouted a little loudly just now. Fortunately, the monkeys were attracted by the horses and did not notice this side.

"No, this should be a Tibetan macaque." Zhou Zhi slowly put down the milk tea in his hand and slowly picked up the digital camera: "The tail of a macaque is relatively long, usually half the length of its body, while the Tibetan macaque's tail is much shorter, less than ten centimeters."

"This is also a national second-class protected animal. This is the first time I have seen one here."