Fuzhou Buddhist Items & Crafts Fair Promotes Environmental Protection-Local Volunteers Spirit Supports “Great Love”

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The China Fuzhou International Buddhist Items & Crafts Fair was held at Fuzhou’s International Convention and Exhibition Center from April 19 to 22, 2013. It was the first time in Fuzhou, and was organized as an extension of the Xiamen exhibition. It attracted many manufacturers as well as crowds of individual visitors. DA.AI, invited by Fuzhou Tzu Chi volunteer exhibitors, saw it as a chance to introduce environmental protection concepts to the local population, while hopefully recruiting new volunteers for Fuzhou.

Tzu Chi volunteers filled with LOVE and WILL. LOVE means making sure the heart is at the center of all emotions (the Chinese character “love,”, has “heart” as a core component), and WILL is considered “life’s original title page” (the Chinese character, “will,” includes “original” and “page”).Enrolling living Bodhisattvas is a primary goal at the exhibition-- passionate and enthusiastic volunteers ready to actively demonstrate great love and achieve Tzu Chi’s spiritual missions through the practice of environmental protection, thus continuing Master Cheng Yen’s original altruistic vision of “compassion fostering selfless minds.” 

A steady stream of enthusiastic visitors crowded the exhibit, stopping to listen to volunteers describing how a lowly PET bottle could be transformed into DA.AI clothes, hats, and bags. Full-time DA.AI Technology volunteer Cathy Hong, using her own clothes as examples, said, “Fabric dyes are major pollutants, so we’ve designed an environmentally benign manufacturing process. Our products received Taiwan Excellence Awards, and all were certified GREEN. Hoping this concept will gain wide acceptance in China, we encourage everyone to reduce their use of PET bottles and generate less trash." The speaker’s earnest presentation drew lots of appreciative feedback.

Many local Tzu Chi volunteers helped support and accommodate the DA.AI booth’s visitors. One Tzu Chi volunteer Yue-Mei Huang was such an enthusiastic DA.AI promotional volunteer, she took time off her work and even helped set up the booth. During a break from introducing the love- and technology-filled DA.AI clothes, Sister Yue-Mei noted, “We’re primarily promoting Master Cheng Yen’s concept of environmental protection; although these products are fairly new in the Fuzhou market, they were pretty well accepted. To dispel any concern about possible toxicity, we explained carefully to reassure them and invite them into the “circle of love” that underlies eco-friendly products as well as Tzu Chi’s humanistic and green values behind the DA.AI brand.

This was new volunteer Sister Ai-Qin Zhu’s first experience of Tzu Chi volunteer activities, and she was very grateful and touched. “Giving without asking for anything in return, and giving strangers an opportunity to collaborate on a meaningful environmental protection activity also filled me with the joy of dharma.” Volunteer Sister Shu-Qing Zhou also took a day off work to help out at the exhibit. She considers such volunteer work more fulfilling than her own work, and vowed to enthusiastically shoulder her responsibility to promote environmental protection to the public.

Boston volunteer Hsiang-Da Chen cut short a trip out of town to participate, spending the entire three days there before returning to the United States the next day so he wouldn’t miss the great opportunity of all the rewarding work. This illustrates the promise “A field of blessings awaits cultivation by all benevolent people in the world.” DA.AI is very pleased to recruit Bodhisattvas to volunteer at such exhibits and related activities because “where there’s a will there’s a way.” In good times or bad, such work can change lives. DA.AI’s promotional activities nourish the spirit of volunteerism, purify participants’ minds, and can ultimately create peace in every society.

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