he smell of beef stew¹ wafts² from a kitchen as a brigade of volunteers put their cooking skills to use on a recent Saturday evening in Tokyo’s commuter³ belt.

最近一个星期六的夜晚，东京的上班族聚居区，炖牛肉的香味从厨房飘来，一群志愿者正在尽力施展他们的厨艺。

In an adjoining room children chat and make paper cutouts while they await the arrival of what for some will be their only proper meal of the day.

旁边的房间里，孩子们一边聊天一边做纸工，等着对其中一些孩子来说一天里唯一算得上是合理膳食的美餐。

Kawaguchi children’s cafeteria is one of hundreds to have sprouted⁴ up in Japan in recent years in response to a problem few associate with the world’s third biggest economy: child poverty.

川口儿童食堂是近年来日本如同雨后春笋般涌现的几百家食堂之一，它们的目的就是解决很少有人会和这个世界第三经济大国联系起来的问题：儿童贫困。

An estimated 3.5 million Japanese children – or one in six of those aged up to 17 – are from households classed as experiencing relative poverty defined by the OECD as those with incomes at or below half the median national disposable income.

估计有350万名日本儿童----即六分之一17岁以下的人----来自经合组织定义的相对贫困的家庭，这些家庭的收入为小于等于国民可支配收入中位数的一半.。

Japan’s relative rate of poverty has risen over the past three decades to 16.3% while the rate in the US though higher at 17.3% has fallen.

日本的相对贫困率在过去的30年中上升到了16.3%，而在美国的比率虽然略高，但是17.3%的比率已经下降。