IN an apparent attempt to revive falling patriotism among youngsters in China, 500,000 students have been mobilised to take part in voluntary work to serve the country.
According to a report in the China Youth Daily yesterday, students from thousands of universities and secondary schools now on winter vacation were recruited into the voluntary services launched on Sunday in 30 provinces.
Dubbed the 1995 Spring Love Operation, the campaign mobilised the students to help tackle some of the country's most serious problems, such as railway traffic and agriculture.
Some students were sent to work in railway stations crammed with passengers eager to go home for the Spring Festival.
'Three hundred students from Taiyuan Industrial University came to the newly-completed local railway station where they offered hot tea to those passengers who have been waiting in the cold for days,' the report said.
Volunteers from the Zhongshan Medical University, the Guangzhou Chinese Medicine College and the Guangzhou Medical School in Guangdong, the province described as No 1 as far as getting rich quick is concerned, offered free medical services to the tens of thousands of migrant workers who were headed home for the festival, it said.
In Zhejiang the Beijing-Hangzhou line has been named 'the Volunteers' and is being served by about 100 students from the province.
