By Tang Zhihao and nanTong Daily

The Nantong Food and D r u g A d m i n i s t r a t i o n launched a safety promotion program in July to provide better information to local people. The program will benefit residents in more than 200 communities in more than 20 subdistricts, according to city officials.

Apart from distributing drug safety information book-lets and spreading food and drug information, the author-ities also provided free fast food safety testing services in communities and helped resi-dents deal with drug-related problems.

Fast food testing facilities were used in a food safety pro-motional event in Xincheng community in Chongchuan district on Sept 24. Residents brought various common foods for testing.

“I brought some mush-rooms because I’m not sure whether there is pesticide residue in them,” said a female resident surnamed Chen.

Testing for one sample took about five minutes, according to Chen Binbin, an inspection service provider. All samples passed the tests on Sept 24.

Authorities said they would trace the source of problemat-ic foods when a sample failed the test.

“We hope to give more food and drug information to residents and collect use-ful information from residents through this program,” said Cao Songyun, deputy director of the Nantong food and drug safety administration.

“We will build Nantong into a national food safety city with the support of our residents.”

Nantong was listed as a pilot food and drug safety city by the central govern-ment in July this year. The city has issued a detailed plan to be a national food safety city in two years.

Fast food safety testing ser-vices were also provided in three agriculture markets on Sept 26 and 27. Local resi-dents were invited to bring food for testing.

Food safety has been one of the main problems concerning Chinese in the past few years. A survey of more than 3,000 residents in 2013 showed that about four in 10, or 38 per-cent of people consider food safety a very big problem, a 26 percentage-point increase compared to a similar survey in 2008.

Nantong food and drug authorities plan to organize a food safety-themed lantern riddles guessing game dur-ing the National Day vacation to mark the first anniversary of the implementation of the China Food Safety Law.

More than 1,500 riddles will be written on lanterns for people to learn more about law, which came into force on Oct 1, 2015.

Contact the writers through tangzhihao@chinadaily.com.cn

By Tang Zhihao and nanTong Daily

The Nantong Cuisine Compe-tition, a part of the 2016 Nantong Jianghai International Tourism Festival, has been strongly pro-moting Nantong’s food culture among global visitors.

Hundreds of dishes, prepared by 151 chefs from Nantong’s leading restaurants, were pre-sented during the competition in the city on Sept 24. Participants prepared many traditional dish-es in the various competitions.

Wenfeng Restaurant’s crab and shrimp balls, Jianghai Fish Port Restaurant’s duck and Jiang-nan Kitchen’s pork hock won recognition from the judges.

Zhou Miaolin, the head of the judging team, praised Hua-tongda Restaurant’s abalone-fla-vored mushrooms, which were cooked with brown mushrooms wrapped in shrimp balls, and No. 1 Fisherman Wharf Restau-rant’s prawn dishes

The competition had three

sections: Chinese-style main dishes, Chinese-style wheaten food and Chinese-styled cold dishes. All dishes had to dem-onstrate not only traditional elements of Nantong cuisine but also innovative elements.

All dishes had to look good and meet nutrition require-ments. The event organiz-ers said that companies were encouraged to focus on other aspects other than appearance.

Chen Jinyuan, deputy director of Nantong tourism bureau, said the competition would encourage innovation in the catering indus-try and promote the development of Nantong’s food culture.

Pei Haobing, president of Nantong Catering Industry Chamber, said the competition attracted many highly skilled participants and this strongly promoted the development of the city’s food culture.

The competition organizing committee invited eight nation-al-level judges to the event to ensure fair competition. The

top three winners were awarded gold, silver and bronze awards.

The competition is a part of the Jianghai Food Expo, which is being held from Sept 10 to Oct 9. Its aim is to boost aware-ness of Nantong’s food culture. The competition was organized by government departments, including Nantong tourism bureau, the bureau of commerce, the human resources and social security bureau, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions of Nantong and the All-China Women’s Federation of Nantong.

Nantong’s tourism bureau and the city’s catering industry chamber have planned a series of events during the Jianghai Food Expo period. More than

300 businesses will participate in the one-month expo, accord-ing to organizers.

Local residents are welcome to participate in promotional events, a photography competition and shows that explore the beauty of Nantong’s food culture.

The annual Nantong Jianghai International Tourism Festival is being held from Sept 10 to Oct 9, is an ideal platform for visitors to learn about the city’s culture and natural resources.

Tourism is one of Nantong’s pillar industries, which contrib-uted 46.3 billion yuan ($6.94 bil-lion) to the city’s income in 2015.

Contact the writers through tangzhihao@chinadaily.com.cn

Bi Ran, a 29-year-old Nantong-born fashion designer, impressed audiences

at the 2016 New York Fashion Week Spring & Summer show with his men’s clothes.

The nine garments designed by the graduate from New York’s Parsons School of Design can be worn separately or as a single piece, depending on owners’ preferences. The sleeves, a collar and the pants can be added to different types of garments to create a new look.

Bi, a major in menswear design, started studying at the University of San Francisco in 2008. He achieved outstanding results during his time study-ing in the United States. He obtained a Council of Fashion Designers of America schol-arship award in 2012 and a CFDA certification in 2013.

Yu Jianhua, a renowned painter in China, was Bi’s painting teacher before he went to the US. Yu was satisfied with Bi’s achievements in painting.

Bi started his internship

programs in New York, one of the most famous fashion cit-ies in the world, shortly after graduating from the Univer-sity of San Francisco. He took internship programs at 3.1 Phillip Lim and Patrik Ervell. The former, which has 250 outlets in the US, was created by Chinese-American design-er Lin Nengping. Celebrities such as Cameron Diaz and Nicole Richie are 3.1 Phillip Lim customers.

Bi served as a design assis-tant with 3.1 Phillip Lim and helped menswear designers adjust and sort out blueprints. He was also engaged in some survey-related work.

“I learnt a lot by taking internship programs in those leading companies,” Bi said.

Bi enrolled in postgraduate programs at Parsons in 2014, after spending eight months in full-time internships. Par-sons, one of the four leading design colleges in the world, only recruits 15 postgradu-ate students a year. The other three leading colleges are the University of the Arts London,

the Italian Istituto Marangoni and France’s ESMOD.

Shelly Fox, the founder of DKNY, is Bi Ran’s course super-visor at Parsons. Fox told Bi that “fashion study should not cater to demand in the fashion indus-try but challenge demand in the fashion industry”.

Bi said studying at Parsons was not easy because Fox is known for her strict requirements.

“Some students dropped out in the first year,” he said. “Every year, some students can’t graduate on time.”

Apart from taking daily classes, Bi devoted most of his

time working in studios. He visited museums with class-mates on weekends to gain inspiration.

Bi said he was impressed by a class called Personal Position-ing, during which an instructor talked to students individually to help them identify their own design style.

Bi told the instructor that he has always been curious about unusual things. He used to take hundreds of photos of an object from different angles and make them into a single image on a poster.

After learning about Bi’s interests, the instructor told Bi to buy a bra and study its design.

This strange homework inspired Bi to design garments that could be separated into parts and put together in dif-ferent combinations.

He noticed that garments are like machines which can have different functions if he experimented with the parts.

Bi bought lots of second-hand clothes and cut off all the sleeves, collars and pants. He established a personal library of garment parts

so that he could design new items whenever he had an idea.

The nine menswear gar-ments presented at the 2016 New York Fashion Week Spring included an underwear, a coat and a mountaineering suit.

“I spent six months prepar-ing this show, but the process was not difficult,” Bi said.

Maharam, a leading textile creator, sponsored Bi’s New York show. Maharam — a supplier to Patrik Ervell, Paul Smith and Mansur Gavriel — did not plan to sponsor Bi because he was still a student before the fashion week. How-ever, Maharam changed their mind after seeing Bi’s work.

“I promised that my work could demonstrate the beauty of Maharam’s textiles,” Bi said.

Bi printed the words “Made in China” on each of this works. He said he has a dream to go back to China to sup-port the development of the fashion industry there.

Contact the writers through tangzhihao@chinadaily.com.cn

Nantong report A5Friday, September 30, 2016

Nantong designer’s unique creations win him praise in the fashion world, Tang Zhihao and Feng Qirong report.

A chef works on plating a dish. provided to chiNa daily

Chinese fashion designer Bi Ran prepares for his showcase at the 2016 New York Fashion Week Spring & Summer show. photoS provided to chiNa daily

TRANSFoRmiNg CloTheS mAke A SplASh iN NeW YoRk

Food competition cooks up a feast

Food safety program kicks off38

percent china’s residents consider food

safety a very big problem

I promised that my work could demonstrate the beauty of Maharam’s textiles.”Bi Ran, the Nantong-born designer