世博志願者-閭丘露薇

I was a volunteer at the National Stadium during Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. It is truly precious experience in my life. But as is pointed out in Lvqiu Luwei's article, volunteers in general do not get respected as they deserve.

Drawing on my own experience, volunteers at those big events are a group of powerless people assigned with some tedious work by the operational team, but for example, what's the point standing at the escalator while there are securities at the entrance already? The only explanation is that they are not doing their job properly. That's typical here, there could be three people doing a one person's job and they couldn't do it right.

The disrespect not only comes from the audience but the paid staff as well. Some Chinese audience called one of the volunteers 'waiter'. What the hell did he think he's doing there? And the paid staff told you what the rules were in the zone, but they would take people in without any accreditations. (This is more of a big issue with the general system in China.) And they would ask you to save several lines of seats for some 'guests'. god, how could we tell other people when we couldn't defend ourselves with a right argument?

Volunteers are not taken seriously; they are not trusted with the responsibilities they are capable to take on; but when something goes wrong, they are the ones to blame.

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世博的志愿者
by 闾丘露薇

到现在为止,世博园內给我印象最深刻的,是那些志愿者.一来人数太多,在园区內走几步就会看到他们，二来他们的被依赖程度太高，来自求助的观众，甚至是管理方。
觉得他们太辛苦，烈日下暴晒，早出晚归，七点多就要出发，好几个晚上，快十二点了，吃完晚饭回酒店的路上，看到他们乘坐的世博巴士，那些年轻而疲惫不堪的脸，透过车窗，看得让人心疼。
观察了一个多星期，好像讲讲这些志愿者。

Up till now, what’s impressed me most in the World Expo Garden is the volunteers. For one, there are a considerably large number of them. You can see volunteers every other steps in the Garden; for another, they are over-relied on by audiences seeking help, and even the administrative staff. They have been working hard: exposed in the burning sun, coming out early and going back late, and leaving for work at as early as 7:00am. For a couple of nights in a row, on my way back to the hotel around midnight, I saw the volunteers’ bus. Through the bus window, those young and exhausted faces made my heart ache a little bit for them.
After my observation for over a week, I’d like to talk about these volunteers here.

园内採取的是人海战术，让观众隨时可以得到志愿者的帮助。但是有必要同一时间，这么多的志愿者出现吗？很多地方，每隔几米就是一个志愿者，就连新闻中心的入口，一边一个保安足够检查证件，结果却要各加一个志愿者。新闻中心的电梯转弯口，楼道内，也有志愿者值班，我不知道他们的功能到底是啥，安保还是提供问询服务？对我来说，更担心这样的消耗，还有一百八十多天，大家这样下去还能坚持多久。

A Huge-crowd strategy is adopted in the World Expo Garden so that visitors could seek for volunteers’ help at any time. But is it necessary to have so many volunteers present at the same time? At a lot of places, there are volunteers every several meters, even at the entrance of the press center, where there is a security guard on each side checking credentials, they place one volunteer there. There are also volunteers on duty at the turn of the escalator, inside the corridor in the press center. I have no idea what their functions are—for security or enquiry service? For me, I’m more worried about this kind of consumption. During more than 180 days left of World Expo, how could they hold on?

不过最让我关心还是志愿者的工作范围到底是哪些？
星期一早上在中国舘门口，香港的一个电视臺摄影师和一个志愿者发生衝突，结果摄影机被志愿者打坏了。事缘这名摄影师走到排队人群里面拍摄，中国舘的工作人员让志愿者去劝阻拍摄。见摄影师不聼，志愿者就动了手，拍了一下摄影机。爭执之中，其他香港记者赶来，这名志愿者情绪激动，又拍打了一下摄影机，而这个过程被完整的拍摄了下来。

However, what I’m most concerned with is the range of volunteers’ responsibilities.
On Monday morning, a cameraman from a HK TV network had a conflict with a volunteer at the entrance of the Chinese Pavilion, and the volunteer broke the video camera. The conflict happened when a volunteer was sent by one of the staff in the Chinese Pavilion to dissuade the camera man to stop filming in the queuing crowd. The volunteer tapped on the video camera after the cameraman refused to stop. During the dispute, other HK journalists rushed to the spot; and the volunteer became agitated and took another tap on the camera. The whole course of events was videotaped.

对错，大家自有评説，我要追问的是哪些负责中国舘安保的人员。维持秩序，本来就是安保人员的职责，而且这是专业，同时有一定风险的工作，推给没有接受过这方面训练的志愿者，对吗？在事情发生之后，把责任全部推到这个志愿者身上，公平吗？
从志愿者第二次拍打摄影机的行为可以看到，这是一个控制情绪能力不高的年轻人，事实上，在这样的情况下，面对几部摄影机，要求一个年轻人保持冷静也不现实。我现在担心的，是遭遇了这样的事情，这名志愿者不要遭到学校或者其他方面的处分，也不要因此而增加太大的心理负担，毕竟对於这名年轻学生来説，这只是一个教训，不应该让他付出太大的代价。

People would have their own judgments on the right and wrong. But I want to further question the security staff in charge of the Chinese Pavilion. To maintain order, which is a professional and risky job, is supposed to be the security personnel’s responsibility. Is it the right thing to do to shift the responsibility to volunteers without professional training in this aspect? Is it fair to scapegoat the volunteer?
Seen from the volunteer’s second tap on the video camera, that young person isn’t good at controlling his temper. As a matter of fact, it’s not realistic to ask a young person to stay calm under that circumstance when faced with several video cameras. I just hope that after what happened, this volunteer wouldn’t receive any sanctions from the university or other institutes; and that he wouldn’t feel too stressed out. After all, this is a lesson for this young student, which shouldn’t make him pay too high a price for it.

我也希望，透过这次事件，有人会反省一下，把这些毫无经验的年轻学生推到衝突的最前綫，是否是负责任的做法？所谓志愿者，只不过是愿意拿出自己的时间来无偿做一些服务別人的事情，他们不是廉价劳工，他们同样需要得到尊重，当出现问题的时候，他们同样需要保护，而不是让他们独力的承担责任。
I also hope that through this incidence, some people would reflect on their decisions to push these inexperienced young students to the frontier of conflicts. Is it a responsible at all? Volunteers are supposed to be a group of people who are willing to devote their time to providing free service to other people; they are not cheap laborers; they deserve to be respected. When issues occur, they also need to be protected, not to have to take on the responsibilities all by themselves.

北京奥运，志愿者不单单弥补了主办机构人手不足的问题，志愿者本身也有不少的收穫，对於年轻人来説，这些是宝贵的人生经验。同样的在上海世博，相信不少志愿者也希望，透过这样的经歷，丰富自己的人生经验。

During the Beijing Olympic Games, volunteers compensated for the problem of the organizer’s being understaffed; and meanwhile, they gained a lot as well. For young people, those are precious life experiences. Similarly on Shanghai World Expo, I believe that a great number of volunteers hope to enrich their life experience through this event.

虽然他们任劳任怨，或者说他们根本没有选择的权利，但是应该有这样的常识，志愿者不应该成为站在最前沿的人，他们也不应该直接面对衝突，他们只是协助的角色。当观众进入世博园的时候，有问题其实不应该第一时间想到的是志愿者，而是应该是哪些拿工资的各类工作人员，因为这是他们的本职工作。

Even though they are fulfilling their duties devotedly and without complaints, or say, they don’t even have the right to choose, they should have the common knowledge that volunteers shouldn’t be the people at the forefront; they shouldn’t be made to directly face conflicts; they are just playing assisting roles. When the visitors enter the World Expo Garden, volunteers are not supposed to be the first one that comes to their mind when they have problems, instead, it should be the various kinds of paid staff, because that’s what they should do.

志愿者是非常可爱的，儘管他们不要求回报，但是不管是观众，还是管理他们的人，以及要求他们配合工作的人，都需要给他们最起码的尊重，这样，才能够让这些年轻人形成尊重他们的习惯，不然，在微笑的背后，是对於这个社会的失望还有沮丧，如果这样的话，未来，如果他们当中的不少人成为了公务员，他们又如何会想到，要去尊重別人？

Volunteers are lovable. Even though they don’t ask for anything in return, they deserve the minimum respect from the audiences, the people in charge of them and the ones who ask for their cooperation or the time. Only in this way, can we make these young people form a habit of respecting others; otherwise, what lie behind the smiles are their disappointments and frustrations with the society. If so, if some of them become civil servants in the future, how would they respect others?

我还记得第一天到上海去领记者证，过程当然一点也不顺利，当耐心耗完的时候，有的记者免不了要给那些负责发証的志愿者一些脸色。其实只要静下心来一想，问题到底出在那里，就会觉得，向这些年轻人发脾气其实很傻。
那天一名相熟的官员一直在现场，他说，他是来给大家骂的，不想大家把气撒在那些志愿者的身上，毕竟那些都只是学生。这些志愿者算是幸运，因为很多时候，志愿者变成了挡箭牌。

I still remember the other day when I went to Shanghai to get my journalist’s certificate. The procedure didn’t go well at all. Some journalists couldn’t help throwing displeasures upon those volunteers responsible after they ran out of their patience. As a matter of fact, if you calm down and think about how things go wrong, you’ll realize that it’s kind of silly to get into a temper with these young people.

On that particular day, an acquainted official was on the spot. He said he was there to be the target for criticism and didn’t want people to take it out on the volunteers and after all they were just students. Those volunteers were kind of lucky, since the group is being frequently taken as the shield.