Flight attendants
A piece of home in the cabin
Her name means “pleasant ocean“: Shuyang. Shuyang Chen is one of about 200 Chinese flight attendants employed on Lufthansa flights between Germany and China since February 2001. Their presence as regional flight attendants in the aircraft cabin helps compatriots feel at home with Lufthansa on flights out of Frankfurt or Munich to Hong Kong, Shanghai, Peking and Canton.
Chinese flight attendant
Shuyang Chen.
It was a dream come true for the young Chinese woman. She began dreaming of flying one day when just eight years old after watching a popular Japanese TV series titled “Flight Attendant” which was televised in China. Only years later, though, did her dream come to fruition.
On leaving school, young Shuyang Chen from Beijing began studying English. To finance her studies, she took a job with a Swedish firm. Her first experience of flying came on a business trip to Germany and Europe. It was then that she determined to study in Germany: She applied for a place to begin studying “German as a foreign language” at Stuttgart University and saved up for her flight to Germany. She wanted at all cost to fly with Lufthansa. “Lufthansa is held in high esteem, like other German brands and products, in China, so Lufthansa was my obvious choice as the airline to work for,“ says Shuyang.
In early 2000, she flew to her new home with Lufthansa. And while signing on for diverse German courses to begin her studies in Stuttgart, she happened to see a job advertisement inserted by her favourite airline in a local Chinese newspaper. When she phoned up in reply to that ad, she was given a ticket to fly to Frankfurt for an interview and was, subsequently, taken on and trained as one of the first Chinese flight attendants.
“Regional flight attendant“ their job title
The first Chinese flight attendants began their training in Frankfurt in the year 2000. In addition to Mandarin and Cantonese, they speak both German and English. “Regional flight attendants” have been in Lufthansa employ since 1961.
For passengers, especially elderly Chinese, who know no English, the regional flight attendants are the only people they can talk to. Shuyang and fellow Chinese colleagues know their passengers’ language, they are familiar with their mentality and customs. Courtesy and politeness in Asia and Europe are different etiquettes: “Please” and “thank-you” are not used as often in China as they are in Europe. The Chinese think they sound superficial and aloof. Exercising reserve and restraint is, moreover, paramount in the code of Chinese culture. Communication is normally more indirect and quieter than the European convention. Shuyang and Chinese colleagues are well versed in Chinese ways and passengers from China greatly appreciate that. Although Shuyang has since begun a distance learning course in business management at Renmin University in Beijing, she cannot imagine life without Lufthansa, since the airline opens the world to her and enables her to visit her family regularly in Beijing.
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