THE Pudong New Area can be glitteringly impersonal - everyone seems to be rushing around, heedless of those around them - but the district has a huge roster of volunteers who slow down and help others. Tan Weiyun talks to a few of them.

The Pudong New Area is known for its glitzy shopping centers, towering landmark buildings and wide, imposing avenues, but that's just the surface. What makes it a better and inviting place is its people, its caring, civic-minded citizens.

Pudong is forging ahead to build Shanghai's biggest team of volunteers and in recent years many new groups have sprung up, emerging as a force for good in community schools, neighborhood cultural centers, medical institutions, orphanages and homes for the elderly.

They volunteer to maintain traffic order and keep pedestrians from crossing against red lights; they play games with children suffering from leukemia and they teach residents how to sort and recycle garbage in neighborhoods.

More than 220,000 people have registered as volunteers in Pudong, accounting for more than 10 percent of the population.

Volunteer teams are a common sight in dozens of parks, around 40 major intersections and every Metro station.

In 2006, the Pudong Volunteers' Home opened a platform for people willing to help others. Its website features information about many volunteer activities and community needs, including tutoring, legal aid, medical work and psychological counseling. It advertises charity bazaars and other events and informs readers how to donate to various causes.

It has never been easier to find a rewarding way to give back and make a difference.

"Everyone has his own preferences and lifestyle," says Song Chengzong, a "Five-star Volunteer" who has put in 9,450 hours of service at Pudong Gongli Hospital. "Choosing to become a volunteer is my way of leaving something valuable in this world."

Expo volunteer

Steward Xu, a 30-year-old manager at a multinational corporate office, is perfectly turned out in a stylish suit and slicked-back hair. At work, he's all business, very serious, but when he talks about his volunteer experience at the World Expo 2010 Shanghai last year, he becomes animated.

"No one could be more motivated than I to be an Expo volunteer," says Xu. "Me and the Expo, we have special connections."

The Shanghai native grew up along the Huangpu River along what would become the Expo Park. When he was a boy, he played hide-and-seek, went fishing and caught shrimp along the river in the vast farmlands. He completed his middle and high school study at a school just a few steps from the main entrance of today's Expo Park.

"I've been growing with this whole place, seeing it evolve from nothing but farmlands and factories into a hub of towering buildings and the beautiful Expo Park," Xu says. "I can map it out even with my eyes closed."

Strongly motivated by this special attachment, he applied for a position as Expo volunteer.

After several months of training in etiquette, communication skills and personal stress management, Xu finally put on the blue volunteer uniform and was appointed director of the No. 1 Service Station at the junction of Shangnan Road and Pudong Road S. He then was named station director at the No. 8 Gate, the most crowded entrance with a dozen bus stops, parking lots and throngs of visitors.

Every day was long; he worked from 8am to 11pm, along with other volunteers from all walks of life - civil servants, teachers, college students, doctors and retirees.

As service station director, Xu coordinated volunteer activities, filed daily reports, helped new teammates get adjusted and most importantly, answered all kinds of questions from visitors and handled hundreds of emergencies.

Xu, who speaks English, and his teammates pointed the way to various pavilions, the nearest toilets and restaurants; they took care of children who couldn't find their parents and helped people who lost their mobile phones, keys, wallets and even their kids.

Sometimes, their stress-management skills were essential; they had to keep smiling and stay calm in the face of angry visitors. "No fighting, always smiling," Xu says.

One day two Malaysian girls came up to him for help because they lost their mother in the crowd. Their mobile phone was out of service. The only thing they knew was that their hotel was a Hilton. Xu called 110, but there were no reports of missing Malaysian mothers or daughters.

Xu had to call every Hilton hotel in the city.

At 11pm, he got a reassuring call from a police station. The mother was found, she had been sitting all day under a pergola near No. 8 Gate, waiting for her daughters.

"When we started as volunteers, we were kind of rushed off our feet but then it became routine and we became pretty calm and confident," Xu says.

Every day there were weird questions and requests. Tour guides asked him to unload boxes of bottled water from vans; visitors asked him to buy meals for them in the convenience store just across the street; people asked them to verify whether the tickets they bought from scalpers were fake.

During the Expo there was lots of coverage about the "little cabbages," volunteers dressed in green uniforms working inside the Expo Park. But there wasn't much reporting on the "Smurfs," the volunteers like Xu who dressed in blue and worked at the entrances, not allowed to enter the park.

Faced with so many questions, complaints and sometimes misunderstandings from visitors, the volunteers also felt wronged. The best "medicine" was to have a big drink together after an exhausting day.

"We would vent and complain together till midnight. After drinks, everything was fine again," Xu recalls with a smile.

But the volunteers also enjoyed themselves. Xu collected many souvenir pins from pavilions and exchanged them with pavilion staff and other volunteers.

"But I sent them all to my friends at the end of the Expo - I just enjoyed the process of collecting," says Xu.

In order to balance his day job and volunteering, Xu mostly did his Expo work on weekends, on holidays and after his daily work was over. Many times he dragged his luggage from the airport after a business trip, jumped in a taxi and rushed straight to the Expo Park.

When he looks back at those hectic days after a year, Xu says he would do it all over again - "and probably better."

"The event was supported by the entire public and almost everyone joined in. It was incredible and being a volunteer will be memory that I cherish forever," he says.

Agony aunts

A group of aunties over 50 years old are the big sisters and "agony aunts" who are reaching out to people in need and offering advice and a shoulder to cry on.

They are becoming celebrities in Pudong's Shanggang Community.

"They are not professional psychologists, but they are perfect for this job and some are even better than professionals," says Guo Juying, an "agony aunt" and initiator of a hand-holding project. She is chairman of the Pudong Shanggang Community Women's Federation.

The team, Zhi Xin Da Jie or Agony Aunt, was established in 2008, made up of around 360 aunties throughout the community's 23 neighborhoods, with around 15 aunties in each one.

The big sisters go community parks, gardens and cultural centers to listen to people's stories, worries and troubles, hold hands and even shed tears with them.

They help soothe people and ease their anxieties using their personal experiences and professional skills they learned in monthly lectures by psychologists. They help resolve family disputes and mediate between quarreling neighbors.

"We listen, we talk, we share stories," says 53-year-old Guo, who has lost track of how many people she has helped over the past three years.

Auntie Hu Jinzhu, a 65-year-old team leader in Gangyi Neighborhood, even finds it hard to go to the nearby food market because once she leaves her house, people stop her and pour out their troubles.

"They can easily talk for an hour until the market is closed, but I don't mind at all," she says.

One day in a heavy rain a woman stopped Hu as she was returning home from the supermarket. The woman, probably out of jealousy, played some tricks to break up a young couple living in the same building. The man's parents, who are the woman's neighbors, went upstairs to her apartment with a knife, ready to fight.

"The woman lived in fear every day and didn't have the courage to go downstairs because she always felt they would come out and kill her," Hu says.

For two hours they stood in the rain. The auntie tried to calm the frightened woman, while she held heavy bags of groceries.

For the next two months, the woman telephoned Hu every night at 9pm for a long talk.

"She told me she was sorry, but she couldn't fall asleep without talking to me," recalls Auntie Hu.

She advised the woman to face the music and not to dodge the problem. She organized a private meeting with the two families and asked the woman to apologize for what she had done and beg for forgiveness.

"Finally they all called a truce and the family has stopped threatening her," says Hu. "The friendship between the two families is totally ruined and rebuilding it is no easy job."

Another auntie is 60-year-old Wang Huizhen who takes a more relaxed approach - she plays tai chi every morning in the park where she builds friendships and chats with everyone who wants to talk.

One elderly woman went up to Wang and poured out her troubles. She had undergone two major surgeries and her husband died several years ago. One day she found out that her son had secretly changed the property ownership certificate of the apartment where she was living.

Afraid of being kicked out of her own house, she turned to Auntie Wang for help. Wang immediately called the neighborhood community lawyer for legal assistance and took the woman to the police station to report the problem and the unauthorized change in ownership documents.

She urged the woman to calm down and reassured her about professional legal help.

"We are ready to ease tensions, but when it comes to legal problems, we hand it over to the experts," Wang says.

Sometime the aunties are "fire-fighters," who rush to emergencies, even talking to people who threaten suicide.

One day 61-year-old Ding Rongfang, an auntie in the No. 3 Jiyang Neighborhood, received a phone call from a 30-year-old neighbor, who said she didn't want to live anymore and planned to jump off the building.

The desperate woman had found that her husband was cheating on her. That afternoon, when her husband was sleeping, she poured boiling water on him. They had a big fight and the woman stepped out on the balcony, threatening to jump.

"She had never talked to me about her family and I thought she was happy," Ding recalls. When Ding rushed to the scene, a large crowd has already gathered.

Ding was allowed to get closer and they talked on the phone.

The auntie spoke with the woman for a long time. They talked about her child, her marriage problems and even little things like grocery discounts and the newly opened pet shop nearby.

Finally, all talked out and exhausted; the woman got off the balcony.

"Everyone has a sad story to tell. If they are willing to talk, I'll be the good listener and secret keeper, but if they aren't, I'll absolutely respect them. We're not nosy gossipers," Ding says.

Each auntie keeps a little notebook, which is absolutely private, and records each case they have helped and each they are helping with.

"No one can read it," says Auntie Guo, one of the initiators of the counseling program. "That's part of the basic trust and confidentiality we have with everyone who talks to us."