Language Skills Open A Path to the Olympics
Graham Anderson is proof positive that learning a language – particularly a critical language like Chinese – can open doors and position you for success. After serving a mission for the LDS Church in Taiwan (where he originally learned to speak Chinese), he returned to the University of Utah to major in both Chinese and Business. Through a series of related events, including hospitality support for the Superbowl, Graham was approached by NBC to spend six weeks as a Hospitality Guide for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. He was one of only 30 Americans selected.
“This was an amazing opportunity,” states Graham. “It turned out be better than I could have even imagined.” Graham had to work very long days as both tourist guide and interpreter for guests of NBC. “We dealt with about 1600 corporate guests who came in four separate waves of four days each. It was intense.”
Graham became an expert guide to locations such as Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. In addition, he had to quickly learn to drive in Beijing, and to navigate all the Olympic venues and complex security. “In addition to taking guests to various tourist attractions in the area, I averaged one Olympic event each day, depending on the guests I was helping. But sometimes I was able to take in up to three separate events in a single day.”
Because of Graham’s polish and strong Chinese language skills he was typically assigned to the top executives and their families. This included NBC President Jeff Zucker and his family. “That was a real treat for me,” notes Graham. “They are terrific people.”
Graham states that his favorite events had to be the women’s gymnastics, particularly the All-Around and Individual events. “This is an event that is usually dominated by the Chinese. The audience was about 90% Chinese, and my group of 30 guests were probably the only Americans in the audience. We were cheering our heads off – it was great!”
When asked about his strongest impressions or memories of his time in China he had to think hard, noting that there were just so many great elements of this experience. He finally concluded that it was the simple things that impressed him most. “Things like figuring out how to drive in Beijing… or helping a guest family have a good experience at dinner.” He believes that without basic Chinese language skills it would be very difficult to navigate Beijing. “It was rewarding to know I was really helping people. Without a guide, who knows what would have happened to some of them.”
The Chinese people also impressed Graham. “They were so eager to help, and to show off their city. Having the Olympics in Beijing was very important to them.” He remembers being at one event and sitting by a small Chinese family. “They were very excited to be there. I realized that many of these [Chinese] people had spent upwards of a full month’s salary to bring their family to a single event. It was a very big deal for them.”
Perhaps one of the top highlights of the experience for Graham came when he had the great pleasure of acting as guide to his own parents, who traveled to Beijing to be with him for a couple of weeks. “It was terrific – they came toward the end, so on the way home I had a great excuse to return to Taiwan, and share that country with my parents.”
There were also a few scary moments during the Olympics. Graham recalled one in particular when he had a small group of 12 Americans in line for a particular event. “It started to rain, and there was a lot of debate about whether or not the event would be cancelled. We were packed into a fenced in security area waiting to get in, and the longer the debate went on, the tighter we were pressed together as more and more people joined the line.” Graham noted that the crowd began to push and shove, and in the process he became separated from his 12 guests. “I was the only one in our group that spoke Chinese, and we ended up getting separated. It was really intense for about 20 minutes. I began to wonder if we were going to become part of an international incident.” But eventually the line was opened up and the event went off without incident.
Graham states unequivocally that he would not have had this amazing opportunity if he didn’t have the strong Chinese language skills that he has. “I would not now be on a path to work for NBC, or to reaching my personal career goals. Without question, my time studying Chinese at the University of Utah will help define my future.”