Consulate thanks helpers on service events

The Chinese Consulate General in New York wrapped up two months of community service events on Thursday evening by recognizing overseas Chinese groups and volunteers who helped in the process.

“We mainly wanted to provide more services to overseas Chinese and do so in a way that’s convenient for them,” Zhang Qiyue, Chinese consul general in New York, said at the consulate office in Manhattan.

“Through the process, we received a lot of support from overseas community groups, who were particularly gracious to take on responsibilities to help Chinese citizens,” she said.

Community events organized by the consulate were meant to be an extension of services offered in its New York headquarters, where it assists 10 states in the Northeast. It kicked off the two months of activities in early February.

The consulate trained several local Chinese community groups and volunteers to help with visa applications, and from late February to early April, it held 20 service events in New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Boston, Pawtucket, Rhode Island; Fairfield County and Groton in Connecticut; Cleveland and Cincinnati.

More than 100 consulate staff, 19 local Chinese community organizations and 300 local volunteers participated in the events, according to the consulate. They helped process more than 2,000 health certificate applications and 1,000 passports and travel renewals. More than 7,000 Chinese citizens received services, the consulate said.

Kai Tao, vice-president of the Cambridge Center for Chinese Culture, one of the organizations that assisted on a community service event, said that she was moved to be recognized by the Consulate General for her group’s volunteer services.

“I’ve been here in the US for 30 years, and whether it’s to help the consulate or to help local Chinese citizens, it’s something that we should do regardless,” she said. “It makes me feel like we should be even more hardworking in the future to support our people.”

On April 7, the Chinese Progressive Association in Boston’s Chinatown was packed with Chinese looking to renew their passports, which allowed passport-holders to renew without traveling to New York.

As the only consulate general in the region, the New York office is where citizens living throughout the Northeast have to go for any documentation requests, renewals and applications.

A 95-year-old woman surnamed Xie, one of the roughly 100 or so people who were there to renew passports, traveled with her children and caretaker.

“There’s no way she would’ve been able to make this trip if the Consulate General didn’t hold it here,” said her caretaker, who declined to be named. “So this is very convenient.”

“This is really meant for the convenience of the elderly and children,” said Ambassador Zhang in an interview at the community center.

“My office provides services for the Chinese community across 10 states [but] we offer most of our services in New York from our headquarters, so we have to reach out to the other states because there’s a great need from the Chinese for renewing or updating their passports and to get their travel documents or to consult us on various issues,” she said.

Zhang said that her office has held 18 events outside New York so far in 2017, and will be organizing a series of events for students in Boston, which has a large international population of overseas Chinese students.

“We’re working very hard in New York — the overall request for documentation is very, very strong. You see the long queue here, and we’re doing our very best to accommodate the needs of citizens outside of New York,” she said.

A 79-year-old man surnamed Jiang, who uses a wheelchair, said that when he last renewed his passport a decade ago, he was not yet limited in mobility, but with his restrictions now, “I would have never been able to make the trip to New York,” he said.

After the service events, the consulate will be holding education-related events and activities to cater to both Chinese students and teachers living in the US.

Hong Xiao in New York contributed to this story.