As World Reading Day was celebrated on April 23rd, a seemingly uneventful weekend , the UCAS library, joined by the UCAS Chorus Club, surprised frequent visitors with a special Flash Mob. Around nine o’clock, when students were about to leave the library after a hard day of study, mellifluous voices, quite different from the regular recorded songs, could be heard in the reading room. At the same time, members of our Chorus Club appeared seemingly out of nowhere, among the astonished audience. Dozens of catchy popular songs were performed and the Chorus won both the applause and hearts of its listeners.
In the run up to the celebration of World Reading Day, the library had launched a series of book-related events, encouraging student participants to exchange books, share book reviews, read famous scripts and watch films adapted from books. The idea of a Flash Mob took shape a year ago. According to Prof. Liu Ming, the general director of the event, the library has far too often been regarded as synonymous with quiet, and this event was expected to bring a different kind of pleasure and enjoyment to the students while they were studying there.
In order to give full play to its performance, the Chorus Club rehearsed multiple times one month before the event took place. To avoid a spoiler and keep others in suspense, the Chorus members couldn’t practice until after opening hours at the library. Despite all the hardship and inconvenience, they were delighted that so many students were cheered up by their performance. “Our performance corresponds to World Reading Day, and we hope to make our fair share of contribution to encouraging everyone to read more and learn more.”
Prof. Zhang Jielong, the director of the library, was surprised that so many students had come, “Through this event, we hope to motivate our students to read more books and develop it into a habit while creating an enabling library environment for our students to rejoice in reading.”
The responses from the students were also quite positive and they admitted they were indeed surprised by the Flash Mob.
