Beijing 2022 volunteers make traditional festive handicrafts to add aura of Spring Festival to venue

By leveraging their skills in traditional crafts, five volunteers from the Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU) filled the National Speed Skating Oval, an ice sports venue for the Beijing 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, in Beijing, with a festive atmosphere before the Chinese Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, as reporting from GMW.cn revealed on Jan 29.

The five volunteers worked for over a week at the National Speed Skating Oval, also known as the “Ice Ribbon.” Two of them are providing translation and interpreting services for sports teams, while the other three work at the Sports Presentation Pavilion inside the venue.

While providing volunteer services at their respective posts, they have also made traditional festive decorations and handicrafts, including paper-cutouts and wool felt dolls, in an effort to create a heartwarming Spring Festival atmosphere at the venue.

On Jan. 25, the day marking the Little New Year, an important occasion for worshiping the Kitchen God and also the beginning of the final preparations for the Chinese Lunar New Year, the venue held a special activity to offer volunteers the experience of writing Spring Festival couplets.

“I’ve watched my father write Spring Festival couplets every year since I was young, but this year I got to do it myself. I was thinking about my family when I wrote the couplets. I hope we will all have good luck in the coming year and wish all volunteers serving the Games safety and health,” said He Jingyang, one of the volunteers.

According to He, she has spent every single Spring Festival with her family except this one, with all the volunteers for Beijing 2022 required to stay at their posts at the venues during the Spring Festival.

“This special Spring Festival that coincides with the Winter Olympics will definitely be an experience that I will remember for the rest of my life,” said He.