【美国《华盛顿邮报》网站1月31日报道】题:中国慈善事业的推动者
　　远处是雾霭笼罩的群山,近处是身穿粉衣、面带微笑的孩子,鼓号声响起.李连杰和多纳泰拉·范思哲宛若身处电影场景之中。
　　其实,这位中国武打明星和意大利时尚人士是在一个偏远的小山村中。庆祝壹基金儿童中心的成立,该中心将为5·12大地震中幸免于难的儿童进行心理创伤治疗和咨询辅导。
　　明星们到非洲帮助贫困儿童,到亚马孙拯救热带雨林,都已不能称得上是新闻。然而,李连杰是中国推动如此规模慈善事业的第一人。
　　45岁的李连杰耗时两年,创办了一个慈善基金会,并号召全世界的富豪名流付出时间和金钱来帮助有需要的中国人。
　　比尔·克林顿、托尼·布莱尔、成龙、刘德华,以及迪斯尼、法拉利、环球等公司的总裁都已加入其中。
　　现在,李连杰将目光投向了中国百姓。尽管中国发展迅速,却是世界主要经济体中慈善捐款比例最低的国家之一。美国的捐款比例约占国内生产总值的2.1%;中国却仅有不到0.35%。
　　李连杰在接受采访时说:“我们所扮演的角色更像是慈善文化的推动者。现在,人们对慈善和志愿者精神的认识仍然模糊不清。我的梦想就是改变中国人对慈善的看法,从单纯地帮助他人转变成自己的一种责任。”
　　李连杰创办壹基金的核心理念是,像中国这么大的一个国家,如果每个人都做出一点贡献,就可以聚沙成塔、集腋成裘。
　　李连杰呼吁每人每月捐出1元钱。他说:“我们的门槛非常低,让人们没法拒绝。”
　　他说:“这种小额捐款很重要。
　　在经济形势不好时,让一个企业捐1亿元是不现实的。但让13亿人每人捐一点来凑成1亿却很容易。”
　　例如,用来帮助地震灾民的很多捐款都来自之前从未捐过款的人。壹基金共收到100万人捐的5亿元善款,截止到7月,还筹集了价值1370万美元的救灾物资。
　　李连杰用两年时间走访各地,研究世界最有效的慈善机构,试图寻找一种适用于中国的模式。他同与中国政府有密切联系的中国红十字会合作,创办慈善机构来筹集善款和实施最有意义的教育、卫生、环境和扶贫项目。
　　李连杰的壹基金采用对股东(即捐款人)负责的公开的商业运作模式。保证透明度非常重要。该机构每季度都会发表报告,由德勤会计师事务所来进行审计。
　　最近,李连杰正将主要精力用在他所说的“业务扩展”上。
　　他与中国招商银行签订了协议，计划推出一种信用卡,持卡人承诺选择每月捐赠1元、11元、111元不等的爱心款。一家中国电影制片公司也提出从每张电影票中捐出1角钱。
　　中国历史中有着浓厚的“奉献文化”。
　　李连杰说:“儒教、佛教和道教都提倡助人为乐和善有善报,但在过去100年里,中国积弱积贫,所以会有一道鸿沟。”
　　李连杰说.经过30年的改革开放,人们的收入和生活水平都有所提高,中国人也应该开始帮助他人了。他说,他对近几年主导中国文化的物质至上主义很失望,他希望国人的精神和物质生活能更加平衡。
　　尽管李连杰的壹基金从中国起步,但他希望这一慈善机构能扩展到慈善观念尚未深入人心的其它地方。他说:“壹基金的意义不在于我们筹集了多少善款,而是影响了多少人。这种推动作用无法用金钱来衡量。

China's Pusher of Philanthropy

Actor Jet Li is taking time off from films to work on his foundation in China, which has one of the lowest rates of charitable giving of major economies. (One Foundation)

By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, January 31, 2009; Page A10

BEIJING Surrounded by mist-covered hills, smiling children in pink costumes and a band playing drums and horns, Jet Li and Donatella Versace looked as if they could be on a movie set.

The Chinese action star and Italian fashion icon were actually in a remote mountain village in December to dedicate a psychological care and trauma center for children who survived the devastating May earthquake in China's Sichuan province. At least 70,000 people were killed, and about 18,000 are missing, according to official figures. Many of the victims were children who were trapped when their schools collapsed on them.

Celebrities jetting off to Africa to help malnourished children or to the Amazon to save rain forests is no longer headline news. But Li is the first to attempt something on this scale in China -- a place where the laws on philanthropy are still being written and where the ruling Communist Party treats charities with the same suspicion it has for any other organization it doesn't directly control.

Li, 45 -- who is known for his graceful martial arts sequences in such movies as "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor," "Hero" and "Romeo Must Die" -- is taking a break from acting to focus on projects such as this. He has spent two years setting up a charitable foundation and recruiting the world's rich and famous to donate their time and money to help those in need in China.

Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Jackie Chan, Andy Lau and executives from Disney, Ferrari and Universal have also signed on to help.

Li considers recruiting the easy part. Now he is turning his attention to residents of China, which has one of the lowest rates of charitable giving of the world's major economies, despite its newfound wealth. In the United States, giving represents about 2.1 percent of gross domestic product; in China, it's closer to 0.35 percent.

"The role we played is more like a pusher of philanthropic culture," Li said in an interview. "Right now, people still have a fuzzy recognition about philanthropy and volunteerism. . . . My dream is to change the concept of philanthropy in China from simply helping others into responsibility."

The core idea of Li's One Foundation is that in a country the size of China, if everyone gave a little, the impact would be enormous. Li is urging everyone to donate one yuan -- about 15 cents -- a month. "We set the lowest entrance barrier," Li said. "Nobody can say no.

"This kind of small amount of donation is very important. During bad economic times, getting an enterprise to donate 100 million yuan is not realistic. But getting 100 million of 1.3 billion people to donate a little is easy to achieve," he said.

Many of the donations used to assist victims of the earthquake, for example, came from individuals who had never donated before. In all, the foundation has received 500 million yuan from a million people. The foundation had raised the equivalent of $13.7 million by July.

Li spent two years traveling to study the world's most effective charities and trying to find a model that would work in China. He teamed with the Red Cross Society of China, an aid agency with close ties to the Chinese government, to create an "uber-charity" that would aggregate donations and pick the most worthy projects in the areas of education, health, environment and poverty.

Li modeled his foundation on a publicly traded business accountable to its shareholders -- in his case, donors. Transparency is essential. The charity issues quarterly reports and is audited by international accounting firm Deloitte & Touche.
These days, Li is spending most of his time on what he calls "business development."

He has struck deals with China Merchants Bank, which plans a credit card that will automatically deduct 1, 11 or 111 yuan each month from a customer's account. South Beauty, a popular Sichuan-style restaurant chain, will donate one yuan for each meal on diners' bills. And a Chinese film production company will allow moviegoers to contribute 10 cents a ticket.

Li, born in Beijing and the youngest of five children, first attracted public attention as a teenager by winning a string of national competitions for wushu, a sport based on traditional martial arts. He was soon cast in a kung fu movie in Hong Kong, and his career took off. He is now one of the biggest stars in Asia. In recent years, Li has increased his profile in Hollywood. His latest film, "The Mummy," stars Brendan Fraser and Michelle Yeoh.

Li's life changed in 2004 while vacationing in the Maldives with his youngest daughters, then 2 and 4. They were almost swept away in the South Asian tsunami. After that, Li said, he felt the need to give back.

Historically, China had a strong "giving culture." "Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism -- they all talk about how happiness lies in helping others and how one good turn deserves another," he said. "In the past 100 years, however, China has been quite poor, so there has been a gap here."

Now, as incomes and standards of living have improved during 30 years of economic reforms, Li said the time has come for Chinese to step up and help each other. He said he has been frustrated by the materialism that has dominated Chinese culture in recent years and hopes his compatriots will find more balance between their spiritual and material lives.

Although Li's foundation is starting with China, he hopes it will expand to other parts of the world where the concept of charity hasn't taken root yet. "The significance of One Foundation is not about how much money we raised. It is about how many people have been influenced by us," Li said. "This kind of pushing cannot be measured by money."

Researcher Liu Liu contributed to this report.

这篇文章是我期末考试的一个材料，问题是分析中国为什么缺乏慈善文化.

偶然间看到吴彦祖在她的博客中与李连杰对话的视频，感触颇多。

李连杰宣传的是一种理念，一种很伟大的理想。他真正的投入其中，并号召大家一起行动起来，

我认为他不仅是在宣传慈善文化，同时也在宣扬中国文化。佩服李连杰，心系天下。

跑题了，大家认为中国缺乏慈善文化的原因是什么？欢迎大家共同探讨