| Preface
In 2008, with tens of thousands of university student volunteers as the foundation, China hosted the Beijing Olympic Games, which left a deep impression on the entire nation. In 2022, the "Generation Z" will take over the baton from the "Bird's Nest Generation" and convey China's goodwill to the world in a sunnier, more open and inclusive manner.
As the next part of the interviews for the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace on April 6, this article collects the perspectives of volunteers from different positions. During their service at the Winter Olympics, some of them kept busy in a quiet place, some were infected by the passion of the athletes and their enjoyment of the process when they watched the games, and some were so busy that they realized it was already the Chinese New Year after a long day of work.
In their stories, peace is embedded in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, in China's Community of Human Destiny, and in every detail of their volunteer work.
| Using their mother tongue as a bridge to bring them closer together, they write songs that reflect their work during the Chinese New Year.
--Hu Qijia
Peking University, German Department, Winter Olympics Volunteer
I work at the Doping Control Center and I am in charge of the front desk orientation. The most likely problem I will encounter in my job is communicating with the foreign staff. Although everyone can communicate in English, they speak their native language when they can't express themselves clearly in English. Once, a Korean expert's computer couldn't connect to our network, so he came to the front desk to ask us to fix it. His computer screen was full of Korean, so at first we were at a loss, and we could only try to understand it through translation software and other tools, and then we contacted the engineers who support network connection and communication in logistics, and asked them to ask for advice or go online to look up the problem. Although there were communication barriers with this expert, he understood us very well.
There was also a German expert who was going to visit us. Since I majored in German, my teacher suggested that I use German to communicate with him initially, such as guiding him to enter some information to facilitate access to the lab in the future. At that time, I had only studied German for one and a half years and could probably only communicate in some daily life, for which I looked up a lot of vocabulary and polite phrases to make sure I didn't say anything wrong. When he arrived at the venue, I greeted him in German and then told him some notes in German as well. He was then very surprised and told me that my German was very good. Even though we can communicate in English, I felt that communicating with him in German brought us closer together. Later on, he would come to me after work to chat with me, asking me about my studies and our volunteer life experience, which made me feel that the language has built a bridge between us.
During the volunteering period, which coincided with the Chinese New Year, we wanted to have a small party and make some creative programs, and we thought of adapting a song. The lyrics of the song were written by professional volunteers who are actually involved in doping control experiments. The lyrics are very professional and reflect the nature and characteristics of volunteering at the Doping Control Center. Because our work is very difficult to be seen by the outside world, other students serving in the venues may still be able to communicate with the athletes or be captured by the media cameras, but we volunteers in the Doping Control Center can only be like a group of transparent white, so we want to tell everyone that there is such a group of volunteers behind the scenes in such a way.
This song is called "Anti-Doping", which we rewrote based on the song "Burn! The process of recording it as a song was a little difficult because our lab was running 24 hours a day during the Winter Olympics, and we worked three shifts, so there was no way to find a uniform time to record it. So we had to let any student sing a couple lines and put it together a little bit. In this way, we sporadically created a song that belonged to us after work.
| The Winter Paralympics gave me a new perspective on gender equality and the disabled community
--Brick
Winter Olympics Volunteer, Media Operations Position
Passing on the word is not only a task in our work, passing on pens and information, but also a lot of spirit in the cross-border communication with each other. We "transmit" from the inside out, and foreigners "transmit" from the outside in.
There were a few moments that surprised me during my service in the Winter Olympics. The first one is that many people don't know that Paralympic ice hockey is a co-ed sport, because most countries only have men participating. But this year, a female athlete from China, Yu Jing, competed and took the field. She was the only woman in the ice hockey program at the Winter Paralympics, and the third female player to compete in ice hockey in the history of the Winter Paralympics. As a female player, it's amazing to me that you need to practice more to build up your strength, skills and agility given the physiological gaps.
The second was during a conversation with a reporter from USA Hockey, I shared with her about a female classmate of mine who wanted to be a reporter but her family didn't support it, and she spoke to me very seriously about the meaning of gender equality, sharing how many women have contributed to USA Hockey, and how, in a seemingly male-dominated field of sports, journalists, athletes, and so on are actually working hard to change the ecosystem so that women to get more involved as well.
Even though statistically this year's Winter Olympics was the most gender-equal ever, and the number of women competing was at an all-time high, I don't think it was enough. Because I observed that there is still a difference between the audience's attention to the men's and women's competitions, in fact, on the basis of the excitement of the competitions alone there is not a big difference between the two, but the audience will still pay more attention to the men's competitions, so I think that there may need to make more efforts in terms of public education.
Serving in the Winter Paralympics has also given me a different understanding of the disabled community. During the Winter Paralympics service, I often met a Canadian journalist who actually had disabilities in her arms and legs, but I never noticed because she was very confident. It wasn't until I exchanged pin (badges) with her that I realized she couldn't use one of her arms, but she also didn't need any help at all to open the package. This made me realize that the Paralympics are changing a new generation of young people in a subtle way. In the past, I was taught to take special care of people with disabilities and give them a helping hand at any time, but after this encounter, I realized that I should also treat them like ordinary people.
In the course of my contact and interaction with other people, I realized that people actually value what kind of person you are more than they care about your nationality or identity. You see the individual, not the label, such as whether he is disabled, what country he is from, or what culture he belongs to.
| Being in the harmonious atmosphere created by sports makes people pure!
--Liang Guoling
Winter Olympics Volunteer, Radio Frequency Management Assistant
I am responsible for the frequency management of radio equipment and related daily work, need to use the instrument to check whether the frequency is stable or not in the competition venues, or in the office through the software for real-time detection. The scope of testing is open to the whole venue, including microphones, working handstands, etc. In the process of work, I have to communicate with foreign athletes and staff.
As a southerner, snow and ice related programs are unfamiliar to me, but this volunteer experience has sparked my interest in snow and ice sports. I was most impressed by the wheelchair curling competition during the Paralympics. Originally, we had the opportunity to watch the wheelchair curling team's games up close, but because of work and related requirements, we could only sit around the studio and watch online through the TV. Wheelchair curling is more difficult than regular curling. Wheelchair curling is much more difficult than regular curling, as the curlers have to consider the accuracy of their shots, which is a huge challenge for athletes with disabilities. If an athlete fails to perform well during the game, we and the audience on the stage will be worried for him, but the athletes' mentality is better than we can imagine, and they are able to cope calmly without fear of setbacks. Every time it was the turn of our Chinese curling team to play, the mood of a group of us would rise and fall with the direction of the curling, and the atmosphere in front of the TV and the cheers of the Chinese team when they finally won the championship are still unforgettable to me.
My volunteer experience has also deepened my understanding of inclusion. It is not only the tolerance that is inherent in the Winter Olympics and Paralympics as a platform for sports events, but also in what each participant sees and does. There is no discrimination against people based on their individual characteristics, and there is warmth and friendliness throughout the stadiums. It is the purely inclusive power of sport itself that inspires and guides everyone to participate and enjoy.
| Seeing Cultural Differences Between Countries, and Witnessing the "One World" in Our Hearts
--Ni Xiaoyi
Winter Olympics Volunteer
I am a Client Assistant for the Olympic Family at the Beijing Winter Olympics. My main job is to accompany Mr. Naoki Hagiwara, the Secretary General of the Japanese Olympic Committee, to help him plan and arrange his itinerary, and to complete all aspects of his work, including nucleic acid testing, travel car, daily meetings and other aspects of the work, as well as to provide him with the appropriate language services on the way.
In the process of getting along with the Japanese clients I accompanied, I also more and more intuitively felt the cultural differences between countries. At one point, my Japanese client was adamant that he wanted to travel with his superior in the same car to ensure that his superior was safe. Although I knew about the Japanese concept of hierarchy, I had no real sense of it before, and this time I really felt the almost loyal respect that subordinates have for their superiors.
My job also involves coordinating with various parties, which is a difficult but rewarding process. Once my client had to accompany his two superiors to the Winter Olympic venues in Zhangjiakou, according to the original plan, after we took the high-speed train to Zhangjiakou, the local can give us a special car. However, due to the shortage of vehicles can not be dispatched, we discussed and decided that I take the three car drivers to go to Zhangjiakou high-speed rail station in advance by highway, and the other people take the high-speed rail to go to the meeting after arriving to continue to take the special car. At that time, I had to explain the reasonableness of our plan to the bus drivers, the venue manager in Zhangjiakou, and to the clients. Looking back now, the scene is still vivid in my mind and I can't forget it.
I spent most of my time as a volunteer communicating needs, coordinating resources, and delivering information. Volunteer work is hectic, so much so that one day after I finished a full day with a client, it dawned on me that it was actually Chinese New Year.
In my opinion, although Olympic sports have competitive and collision parts, they are under the rules and even more so under the spirit of unity of the athletes. I also remember in the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics when the smallpox skating show after the end of the skating, athletes from various countries gathered together in the field of the ice pier pier beside the scene for a group photo, that scene is a perfect interpretation of the "mutual understanding, friendship, longevity, solidarity and fair play," the spirit of the Olympics, but also echoed the closing ceremony of the emergence of the It also echoes the words "one world" that appeared in the closing ceremony.
Volunteering for the Winter Olympics has been a fulfilling and wonderful experience for me to find a new way to open myself up. In this experience, I enjoyed the real value and sense of accomplishment of volunteering, and learned more about the world and myself.
| The afterglow of the Winter Olympics is still with me!
--Wang Caichen
Winter Olympics Volunteer
My position is Japanese language service, mainly responsible for the translation of documents, handover in the mixing zone, and the distribution of interview items in the press room. I have to deal with all kinds of people from time to time, and I also need to react flexibly to deal with some emergencies, such as modifying problematic banners and helping foreign journalists who do not speak the language to communicate with the security guards, and so on. "Meeting friends through sports" is my feeling about the Winter Olympics. Language serves as a bridge to connect people from all over the world to this sports event.
Due to the mobility of my language service position, I was unable to communicate with foreign athletes and journalists for long periods of time, but I was able to meet many wonderful people through my interactions with various volunteers. Among them, I was impressed by a volunteer from Malaysia. On the New Year's Eve at Shougang Ski Jump, that volunteer hung spring couplets and put up lucky charms with Chinese volunteers, showed great interest in Chinese culture and asked many questions about Chinese New Year's customs in the process, which gave me a sense of pride and delight in spreading Chinese culture.
During my time at the Shougang Jump, I also met a "familiar face" - Sweden's Sven Sögren. He was a competitor in the 2018 FIS Snowboard Jump World Cup in Beijing, and I was also a volunteer at that event. Later on, during an opportunity to communicate with Sögren, I shared this marvelous bond with him, and he expressed his gratitude to the Chinese volunteers.
Then there was the qualifying round for the women's snowboard big jump, where France's Lucille wore a jacket with a tiger on it. She couldn't advance because of an injury, but that didn't stop her from enjoying the sport. Because this is the year of the tiger in China, everyone was attracted to her for that reason. I saw athletes from various countries talking happily with her, and the spectators around her were also discussing in a very friendly way, and I found this image very cute.
The connection with the Winter Olympics didn't seem to be broken even after the end of my volunteer service, and I still pay attention to the information about the Winter Olympics. Sometimes when I meet students wearing Winter Olympics volunteer hats on campus, I get a sense of comradeship that I have fought for the same goal, as well as an ice dunce from the organizing committee, long after my volunteer activities have ended. The afterglow that the Winter Olympics or sports brought to me is still lingering.
江苏省南京市建邺区江东中路391号
南京 中国
