Volunteers pour their heart and soul into making CIIE a success
Volunteers are essential to the smooth running of the China International Import Expo.
A total of 4,844 volunteers recruited from 40 universities and colleges in Shanghai are serving at this year's China International Import Expo.
Guiding visitors, serving the media and assisting in administrative work, they keep the event running smoothly.
Zhang Liwei (left) serves journalists at the media center at this year's import expo.
Doctoral volunteer on the run
Zhang Liwei is a doctoral student from Shanghai International Studies University.
Fluent in Russian and English, Zhang serves journalists at the media center and helps them with media trips in Shanghai during the expo.
Zhang, who studies Russia and Central Asian countries, said he enjoys meeting people from foreign countries and communicating with them.
The 29-year-old taught Russian at Tianjin Foreign Studies University before he was enrolled as a doctoral student in Shanghai this year.
A native of Hubei Province, where the COVID-19 pandemic first broke out, Zhang said he successfully started his doctoral studies as planned thanks to efficient reaction of the Chinese government.
He said he didn’t hesitate when he got the opportunity in September to serve the import expo. He had previously served as a Russian interpreter at large international events such as the Summer Davos in Tianjin.
“Such events are great chances for me to have close contact with foreigners from all walks of life, especially those from the countries that my study covers,” he said. “It’s also my honor to serve important events in my country with my knowledge.”
When Zhang told his supervisor Yang Bo, he got immediate support. Yang served as private interpreter to the prime minister of Russia during the first import expo in 2018.
Zhang said the organization of volunteer work on the expo was impressive.
“At many other events, volunteers are not given specific work to do, nor are they told how to do what, but here we’re assigned to specific posts and work shifts and given a good training on our job,” he said. “This enables all volunteers to do their job well and ensure that they can have a good rest.”
Zhang said that even before the opening of the expo, he had received inquiries about media trips from journalists from Hong Kong and Macau and from Japan. The journalists were introduced to trips themed on Shanghai’s economy and culture.
The first import expo, he said, also opened his eyes.
“I’m a student of liberal arts, and the import expo is a world of science and technology that inspires me so much.”
There are 196 students from Shanghai International Studies University volunteering for this year’s import expo. Three in four of them can speak two foreign languages, and 35 of them speak three.
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Song Xinting (right) selects a "blind box" for a volunteer.
Jiang Xiaowei / SHINE -
Song Xinting hands over a "blind box" to a volunteer.
Jiang Xiaowei / SHINE -
A volunteer opens up a "blind box" he receives.
Jiang Xiaowei / SHINE -
A volunteer browses contents in "blind boxes" at the ""Home of Volunteers."
Jiang Xiaowei / SHINE
The volunteer behind volunteers
Greater incentives are given to volunteers at this year’s import expo, and Song Xinting, a volunteer herself, is on the team of the Shanghai Youth League, the volunteer service provider, to make this happen.
Song, a third-year student of French at Shanghai International Studies University, has a passion for both volunteer services and serving volunteers.
The voluntary service organizer from Taiwan said she believes that volunteer activities of higher quality and more active engagement from contributors can make real changes in society.
“As a volunteer behind the volunteers, my job is to make my fellow volunteers enjoy doing good deeds for others and in this way inspire more people to do the same,” she said.
Song, who has been working as an intern at Shanghai Youth League, said her team started to plan the volunteer service project for the import expo, “Home of Volunteers,” from the end of September.
There were similar projects at the past two expos, but this year more sponsors were drawn to provide incentives for volunteers, and the needs of volunteers were better taken into consideration.
Apart from snacks and drinks, volunteers are provided with skincare products, herbal candies, stationery, eye patches and mobile phone cases. The gifts are hidden in “blind boxes” – volunteers having no idea what’s inside until they open them.
“Ideas from us student volunteers were referred to during the design of the project,” Song said.
The first volunteers have started to claim their blind boxes after finishing 200 hours of services. Song said the team will later make the offer to those who have served for 100 hours as some volunteers were late in loading their service records in a mobile app.
At the “Home of Volunteers,” there is a small elevated stage near the dining area where the volunteers can entertain themselves. There is also a reading corner.
On a team that runs the largest volunteer service projects she has ever participated, Song said it’s a fulfilling mission.
“While in school projects, junior students usually follow instructions from their seniors, but such projects are a bigger stage for me to think and work independently,” she said.
Tang Ping (left) serves journalists at this year's import expo.
A third-year volunteer
One in six of the volunteers at this year’s import expo has served at least one edition of the event in the past two years. Tang Ping is one of the “third-year volunteers.”
Tang is a third-year master’s student in nursing science at the School of Medicine of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. At the past two expos, she worked as a volunteer to receive VIP guests, designing trips for them inside the venue, while this year she is serving journalists at the media center.
As an experienced volunteer, Tang trained new volunteers from the school of medicine before they went on their posts.
"I advised them to get familiar with the floor plan of the venue so as to provide precise directions to visitors and also to enable themselves to find destinations easily," she said.
"Apart from that, I reminded them to have a heightened awareness of the importance of the event and to contribute to it with passion," she added.
Giving lessons, Tang also took lessons on the new post she has been assigned to this year.
“I’m proud of my country which managed to host such a large international event while the COVID-19 pandemic is still ravaging the world,” she said. “The organization of such a grand event would not be possible without a high spirit of teamwork.”
