The 2013 Shanghai International Literary Festival, held at M on the Bund restaurant, took place from the 1st to 17th March. SBC students were the organiser’s first choice for volunteers due to their impressive performance at the festivals in the previous two years.
This year was the 11th in total that the International Literary Festival in Shanghai had been held. As usual, many famous authors attended the event to make presentations to the audience. Guests of this year include author A.D. Miller, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2011, and Shin Kyung-sook, winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2012. Chris Doyle, famous cinematographer, also attended the festival. Mr. Doyle has recently won awards at the Cannes Film Festival and Venice Film Festival. He has worked closely with many famous Chinese directors, such as Wong Kar-wai, Zhang Yimou and Zhang Yuan.
In addition, Dr Lindsay Shen, SBC Director of Research and Head of the Division of Events Management, took part in the festival and shared her latest publication “Knowledge is Pleasure: Florence Ayscough in Shanghai”, written for the RAS Shanghai-Hong Kong University Press China Monographs series.
SBC volunteers worked over three weekends, assisting with the preparation of sessions and workshops at the festival. Our students were responsible for receiving guests, checking tickets, venue logistics and assisting with coordination of the event. M on the Bund set very high standards to ensure the smooth running of this festival, providing a great challenge and fantastic opportunity for students to be involved in such a high profile international event whilst accumulating invaluable work experience.
Wang Zhuo’er, team leader of the volunteers, said that everyone in the team had quickly learned how to communicate with guests effectively, work alongside other staff and to deal effectively with unexpected situations. All these skills will be very useful for each student’s future career.
The organiser of the Literary Festival was impressed by the English language skills and enthusiasm of the volunteers and said that looked forward to working with SBC students again in the future.
