PureInsight | December 19, 2005
[PureInsight.org] According to the Chinese Lunar Calendar, in 2006, the Chinese New Year falls on January 29th and it is right around the corner. The 2006 New Year's Gala is only a little more than one month away!
A month before the 2005 New Year Gala was held in New York City, things were hectic, enjoyable and exciting as volunteers worked very hard to promote the gala and sell tickets for the gala. Every day volunteers had to come up with new and better ideas to sell more tickets. There was no weekend or holiday. Every day I thought to myself, "What is the best time and location to promote the Gala?" At that time, because all of us were so busy trying to sell the tickets, I didn't even have time to do a photo report with all the pictures I had taken.
Volunteers came up with many different ways to promote the gala, and our promotion team made up of beautiful ladies dressed as fairies was very eye-catching. Now I want to write about what we did last year and publish the precious photos that I took during that time.
Before we came up with the idea of a fairy team, wearing a sash across the shoulder was also very effective to draw people's attention. Many westerners could see "Chinese New Year" printed on the sash from far away and called out to us, "Happy New Year!" The children's performance team was also very effective in selling tickets.
We soon came up with the idea of using the fairy team to promote the gala. During rush hours when people were getting off from work, two fairies would take care of two subway exits with some other volunteers calling out nearby, "Music and dance of the Great Tang Dynasty! The art of 5000 years! You are welcome to attend the Global New Year Gala!" The fairies had to maintain their elegant appearances and could not shout out aloud. So other volunteers did that for them. That took skill too, as it they had to time it perfectly in order to let as many commuters hear them as possible. Thousands and thousands of commuters passed by us everyday. Even if they didn't take our promotion flyers, they could hear our voices. Ten or twenty meters away from the fairies, we had more volunteers waiting, so that those who had walked by the fairies too fast would have another chance to take the flyers.
Fairies were all female volunteers in their twenties. As the sun began to set between 4 and 7 PM, the decorations on their hairs reflected the light from the subway entrances, giving out golden shine. The fairy costumes made their Asian faces appear even more charming. People passing by all wanted to turn their heads and look at the beautiful fairies more even if they were in a hurry.
An elderly westerner in his sixties met a volunteered dressed in the fairy clothes. He shook her hand for a long time and appeared puzzled. He said that he seemed to have seen her somewhere before and he felt a strong wave of nostalgia when he saw her dressed in the fairy's costume. He said that his whole family would certainly come to the gala because the fairies were so beautiful.
A group of elderly westerner ladies in a subway train saw a fairy team who were on the way to their promotion location. They asked the volunteers many questions and said that seeing the fairies reminded them a beautiful period of time and they felt inexplicably that they had seen it before and had lived through such a culture. They felt a nostalgic feeling that was hard to express by words. They all said they would definitely attend the gala.
Hearing a volunteer's brief introduction, some people turned around from more than ten meters away and asked what year it was in the Chinese calendar and what the year's zodiac sign was. They then said, "Happy New Year."
A businessman from Mainland China saw the fairy team. After finding out what was going on, he was surprised and said, "Your TV station has such a strong advertisement group! It means that your gala must be splendid. No matter what, I will attend it."
Volunteers opened three ticket reservation hotlines. So many people called to purchase the tickets that volunteers had a hard time handling all the calls. They always heard from the callers, "I have called your ticket reservation line several times and it was always busy." The tickets for the New York New Year's Gala were sold out three days before the performance.
Four hours before the New Year Gala was to start, an elderly western couple came to the entrance of the theater and waited to see if they could purchase tickets onsite. When asked why they hadn't ordered their tickets ahead of time, they answered, "We called several times, but the line was always busy." They heard about the Gala when they took a walk by chance in Chinatown and received a promotion flyer from our volunteers.
A volunteer from Japan gave her precious tickets to the old couple. At the moment when she handed over the tickets to them, she couldn't hold her tears anymore. She and her newly married husband had planned to attend the gala almost six months earlier. With one of them in Japan and the other in New York, they decided to meet in New York for the gala and purchase the most expensive tickets so they could watch the most magnificent performance from the best seats and enjoy the splendid performance. It was difficult for her to give away her tickets. She was both happy and sad. She had served as a volunteer for the gala for more than a month and dressed up as a fairy every day to promote the gala. Hadn't her experience told her that all her hard work had been to find people like the elderly people who longed to receive tickets to view the elegant demeanor, romantic charm, and divine culture of the great Tang Dynasty?
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2005/12/4/34827.html
