Young Chinese volunteers: Self/interest, altruism, and moral models

Abstract

When Zhang Guiren1 arrived to our appointment, he was followed y a cameraman. I knew that Zhang had acquired a certain fame d public recognition, but I had not expected that he would turn our "informal chat" into a media spectacle. "It’s just to document what I am doing," Zhang assured me upon noticing my apparently uncomfortable facial expression. "It’s going to be a documentary about my volunteer activities." I was still not quite sure what to make of this. My confusion only grew when we sat down, and without prompting, Zhang opened a thick folder out of which he pulled a stack of local newspaper clippings documenting his "good deeds." Putting one after the other in front of me, he told me about his efforts: how he had ceaselessly carried heavy bags of rice and flour, financed largely by his own means, to help poor people; how he volunteered more than 19 hours a day; how he had personally set up and managed a telephone help-line for young people in distress; how he had received distinctions for his efforts; and so on. All the while, the man with the camera was circling us, zooming in and out on our conversation. Eloquent and apparently "public relations" savvy, Zhang’s behavior and personality did not fit easily with my (maybe somewhat stereotypical) image of volunteers as selfless persons who more or less privately do good deeds for the benefit of others.