60 People, 60 Stories

Assisting others helps in learning ways of Beijing

By Volkan Gurcan (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-30 09:57

Living in Beijing is not easy. It's not easy for Chinese youths, let alone overseas students like me. But I still enjoy living in the city.

But I understand this was precisely what the Beijing Olympic organizers were looking for before the Games started last summer - expatriate volunteers with knowledge of living in the Chinese capital. I remembered that among the 100,000 Olympic volunteers who helped in the Games, 935 were expatriates. They included foreign students, overseas Chinese and expatriates living in the city.

I guess I was chosen because the Olympics organizers fully trust us to use our local knowledge and bilingual skills to help visitors.

My job, along with 19 other foreign students living in Beijing, was answering calls in our mother tongues for spectators from our home countries who call a hotline run by the Games organizers.

We had one shift each day, either night or day, for about eight hours. Sometimes, the hotline would be extremely busy. I was answering one transportation question while I could see that another impatient visitor from Turkey was waiting on the line. Those were tiring days, but they were rewarding. Not anybody can wear the Beijing Olympic volunteer uniform.

I have lived in Beijing since 2006, so an understanding of the city was not much of a problem. But to help us volunteers become more familiar with Beijing, we received extensive sessions of cultural learning, which helped us know more about China.

I could barely communicate in Chinese when I first arrived, but that did not stop me from making friends. But I soon began inviting Chinese friends to my home for a cup of Turkish coffee and fortune-telling using the dregs of coffee grounds left in each cup. That was how I got to know the local culture.

I am glad to be able to witness and be part of the Olympics. It will always be one of my best memories.

Volkan Gurcan, an Olympic volunteer and Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics graduate student, is from Turkey.