{"id":1451,"date":"2018-04-23T16:48:29","date_gmt":"2018-04-23T07:48:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/tokyo\/?p=1451"},"modified":"2019-01-15T17:01:02","modified_gmt":"2019-01-15T08:01:02","slug":"student-volunteer-activities-at-the-pyeongchang-winter-olympic-games-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/tokyo\/news-en\/2018\/04\/23\/1451\/","title":{"rendered":"Student volunteer activities at the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games (4)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Positive attitude cultivated through venue management and communication between students<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Voice of a participating student<\/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. Urim Han, a fourth-year student at the School of International Liberal Studies, who is back from the event, speaks about her experiences.<\/p>\n

Profile:<\/p>\n

Urim Han, 4th year at the School of International Liberal Studies, Waseda University<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Connecting people through sports and communication<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I want to try my trilingual abilities<\/u><\/strong><\/h4>\n

I am Korean, and I speak three languages: Korean, Japanese, and English as I have lived in Japan for 11 years and in the US for 7 years. When I was thinking what I could do with my language skills, I learned about the student volunteer program for the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games, and dared to apply for it.<\/p>\n

About 100 students who participated from Japan were divided into groups of 30 to 35 and dispatched to venues. I was assigned to the information center at the Jeongseon Alpine Centre, where I was responsible for responding to visitors\u2019 queries and providing route information. Flexibility was required in dealing with visitors from different countries.<\/p>\n

I was moved by communication beyond national borders<\/u><\/strong><\/h4>\n

The Jeongseon Alpine Centre\u2019s athletic fields are surrounded by mountains. Spectators will need to use ski lifts to see competition. Some of them, however, walked up hills. Whenever I saw people going up on foot, I gave encouraging words like \u201cWay to go!\u201d or \u201cYou are almost there.\u201d They all responded with a smile regardless of where they were from or how old they were. I felt so rewarded every time I saw their smile.<\/p>\n

I have been fond of sports since childhood. I was filled with emotions just to see professional competition right in front of me. Even more impressive was that spectators cheered equally for all athletes. I was very moved as I felt a connection through sport.<\/p>\n

At the dormitory, each room was shared by five people. Though I had thought that volunteer students spoke Korean, most of my roommates did not. They asked me to teach Korean, and I gave them Korean lessons from day one. They were able to speak Korean at a conversational level only a month later. Their passion and positive attitude was inspiring.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Advancing my language skills toward 2020<\/strong><\/h3>\n

What I learned through communication with spectators and volunteer students is the importance of speaking to others. I was a shy girl until my high school days. I am no longer reluctant to speak with strangers thanks to the volunteer experiences. I want to make more use of my language skills at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and I started learning Chinese wishing to be a bridge connecting people from many more countries.<\/p>\n

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

Positive attitude cultivated through venue management and communication between students Voice of a participat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1130,"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-1451","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\/1451","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=1451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/tokyo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/tokyo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/tokyo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/tokyo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/tokyo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}