世博志愿者们的苦与乐

中国2010年上海世界博览会（Expo 2010），是第41届世界博览会。于2010年5月1日至10月31日期间，在中国上海市举行。此次世博会也是由中国举办的首届世界博览会。上海世博会以“城市，让生活更美好”（Better City, Better Life）为主题，总投资达450亿人民币，创造了世界博览会史上最大规模记录。

A typical day at the Expo begins with thousands of visitors running down the main boulevard toward the most popular pavilions so they can be among the first to get in.

Many of them head directly to the Taiwan Pavilion.

The small pavilion has a theme song entitled "The Heartbeat of Taiwan." The new single by Taiwan pop star Jolin Tsai presents a picture of an ideally peaceful and tranquil modern world with many traditional elements of the island. One line goes: "Less hatred, more us; less cold, more warmness."

Tang Jiapei, a college student majoring in geography at Taiwan Normal University, is among the 16 pavilion guides who were selected from some 2,300 job candidates on the island.

As she eats breakfast in the small, crowded staff room, Tang says her team has a useful icebreaker, which is teaching visitors how to say "thank you" in the local dialect.

"Duo xia", which means "many thanks," is almost the same as "duo xie" in Mandarin.

The guides are now determining the sequence of today's work and will lead groups with some 20 visitors each. Normally most of them will be in different places inside the pavilion to welcome the six-thousand people who visit each day. But today, fortunately, there are more than 10 tour guides working, which means each of them can take longer breaks.

Tang says working six days a week makes her feel ill sometimes. She admits she gets homesick especially during the holidays and her parents' birthdays.

But homesickness does not seem to bother the outgoing young woman very much. She is now helping to stamp Expo passports for visitors.

Tang says she likes Shanghai a lot and has had a great time here. She has visited Beijing, Anhui, Yunnan and some other places on the mainland several times.

Now it's her turn to lead a tour group.

Always smile, practice the rehearsed moves and speak in a pleasant voice. It is not difficult to understand why most visitors have smiles on their faces when they leave the Taiwan Pavilion.

The day comes to an end, but for thousands of Expo workers like Tang Jiapei, this is just another day.

For CRI at Shanghai World Expo, I'm Su Yi.