Decoration volunteers arrange flowers with joy and feel blessed to service the participants.
Written by: Zeng Xiu-Xu
Photo by: Lai Hui-Juan
Translated by: Nansen Wang
Proofread by: James Huang
To show a warm welcome to TIMA members, volunteers adorned the dining hall, VIP lounge, and Jing Si Hall with flowers all around. The sweet floral aroma fills the air with a bustling atmosphere. The decoration team volunteers put their hearts in to bring out the warm home-like feeling for our convention participants.
The Theme is the Color of Autumn
Ms.Ou Jin-luan, the contact for the decoration team, began her design ideas early. With her nine-member team, they took on the decoration of the dining hall, VIP lounge, and the dorm. She got the idea of decorating those places with the color of autumn when she went to Hualien on September 2nd for a preliminary survey of the site. Since the convention is to be held around the Mid-Autumn Festival, a theme of the autumn will just fit the ambience well. Autumn is a season of harvest in Taiwan with different colorsfrom deciduous, codiaeum, fruits, etc. so yellow is in use as main color to decorate around to show the feeling of warm and bustling.
In addition to flowers, she also bought apples, pomelosas the festival treat for the participants to enjoy. Of course she prepared moon cakes as well, a great match to go with Jing Si Tea. She said “Hoping everyone will enjoy the various treats of Mid-Autumn Festival arranged by Tzu Chi volunteers.”
Simple decorations display an environmental awareness idea
We can see artisan flower decorations everywhere, including the Great Lecture Hall, Gratitude Hall, International Conference Room and 220 class room, they all needed to be decorated. Ms. Lin Li-Zencame in early to Jing Si Hall with three other flower management volunteers, to wait for delivery of flowers. With the flowers received, they spent about 10 hours standing there to come out almost 20 pieces of arranged flowers work. She said, “We were extremely tied, but we got them all done together before taking the break.”
Lin Liz-hen is the wife of Hsu Wen-Lin, a deputy superintendent of Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital. She said “I build a great affinity with all TIMA participants by providing for flower management. It is my blessing and something I want to do.” During the past decade, she has been spending a lot of time and money decorating the conference site every year. She designed with different styles aiming at enhancing environmental awareness in recent years.
Master De Ni (center) tells volunteers how to decorate the site mindfully.
“In recent years, Global Warming becomes worse and worse and environmental protection becomes a big issue. Master Cheng Yen initiated the Tzu Chi environmental protection awareness and asks her disciples to practice it in their daily life. So, this year I use simple ideas incorporated with humanistic design conserve the resources of our planet.”
After Master De Ni looks around the sites, she points out that the space in front of the bouquetis short of ornaments. Lin immediately added some pomelos to fill up the space.
Tzu Chi volunteers welcome TIMA members from all over the world with their delicate services to all participants. Through the hard works they do to provide a pleasant ambience of Mid-Autumn Festival, they forget the exhaustion upon seeing the joy has spread all around Jing Si Hall.
