{"id":1448,"date":"2018-04-02T14:41:44","date_gmt":"2018-04-02T05:41:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/tokyo\/?p=1448"},"modified":"2019-01-08T14:49:56","modified_gmt":"2019-01-08T05:49:56","slug":"student-volunteer-activities-at-the-pyeongchang-winter-olympic-games-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/tokyo\/news-en\/2018\/04\/02\/1448\/","title":{"rendered":"Student volunteer activities at the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games (2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arduously supporting event management at stadium filled with excitement<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Voice of a participating student<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Waseda University sent six student volunteers in February 2018 to the 23rd Winter Olympics held in PyeongChang, South Korea. The students, who received pre-service training in autumn last year and on-site training early February this year, conducted volunteer activities at various venues during the games from February 9 until February 25. Lim Youngji , a first-year student at the School of Education, who is back from the event, speaks about her experiences there.<\/p>\n

Profile:<\/p>\n

Lim Youngji, 1st year at the School of Education, Waseda University<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Volunteering behind the scenes of exciting games<\/strong><\/h3>\n

International exchange at the Olympics<\/strong><\/h4>\n

I joined the student volunteer program for the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games held for a period from February 9 until 25, 2018 in my home country, South Korea, hoping to enhance my communication skills by working closely with students with high linguistic proficiency in an international environment.<\/p>\n

I worked as a guide and translator at galleries and aisles in the Gangneung Speed Skating Stadium. There were about 300 volunteers in the stadium; 30 people were from Japan, and the rest were mostly from Korea.<\/p>\n

Using my linguistic abilities<\/strong><\/h4>\n

As the name of the Gangneung Speed Skating Stadium indicates, speed skating games were held at the stadium. I could not see competitions often because the stadium is so far away from my dormitory that it took me an hour to get there by bus, and I sometimes had to work until late due to games at night. But I was luckily able to see speed skater Lee Seung-hoon of South Korea at the medal ceremony after winning the men\u2019s mass start. I also saw a group of supporters rooting for Japanese athletes with handmade goods held high in their hands. Those were some of the moments I look back fondly on.<\/p>\n

I spoke Korean more often I had expected. I was given directions in Korean by my supervisor while at work and spectators were mostly Korean. Few Koreans spoke English, so I and a few others had to translate directions in Korean into English to coordinate work. It was a little pity that I did not have many opportunities to communicate with people from different countries as volunteers at the Gangneung Stadium were mostly Korean. Instead, I frequently communicated with Korean volunteers, which was a good experience for me. I used to think that a big event like the Olympic Games was a different world for me, but I feel so close now through my volunteering experiences there.<\/p>\n

Toward the year 2020<\/strong><\/h4>\n

As I will still be a student when the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games is held, I would like to participate as a volunteer again. I want to brush up my Japanese and English so that I can contribute more to the Games as a translator and interpreter, and I am looking forward to communicating with a lot of people again.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arduously supporting event management at stadium filled with excitement Voice of a participating student Wased […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1107,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[94,81,71,93,70],"class_list":["post-1448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","tag-general-en","tag-global-en","tag-sports-en","tag-student-en","tag-student-activities-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/tokyo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/tokyo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/tokyo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/tokyo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/tokyo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/tokyo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/tokyo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/tokyo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/tokyo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/tokyo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}