Young Volunteers in Quake Zone Ultimately Find a Modest Mission

This has led to disappointment among some volunteers who had hoped to help those in the worst-hit regions but were instead sent to locations where they could be assured of their own safety.

On computer bulletin boards popular with young people, there has been impassioned debate about whether some volunteers were just getting in the way.

"Some volunteers claim to be volunteers, but my friends and I call them 'tourists on a one-day tour to the quake-hit region,' " wrote one person on the Tianya forum. On a board run by China's Red Cross, another writer discouraged inexperienced volunteers: "We ordinary people have a loving heart but no sufficient skills. So do not go to the front of the disaster-hit region. If we get there, the local people have to feed us and provide accommodation for us."

Li and her friends didn't want to be that kind of volunteer.

As graduates of some of China's best colleges and with professional jobs, Li and her group are among China's emerging middle class. Most took a week off without pay to come to Sichuan and spent a month's pay or more on airfare and supplies for victims.

Li said she got the idea to organize a trip from a text message sent to her phone by the Communist Youth League the day after the quake hit. She wanted to spend a few days preparing, but "the longer I waited, the more anxious I was to go," she said.

Li gave herself and the other volunteers just two days, assembling donated supplies from Shanghai-based businesses and buying the rest with their own money. By the time they made it to the airport, their bags were bursting with new camping gear and supplies ranging from masks, antibiotics, disinfectant wipes and mosquito spray to packaged tofu and duck neck.

"We didn't want to burden anyone," explained Sun Qingfei, 25, an advertising sales executive who arrived in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, wearing a hard hat.

The group hoped to get a quick start, but ran into the bureaucracy of the volunteer movement. When they couldn't get through to the Youth League by phone, they turned to China's Red Cross. They spent most of Sunday filling out forms and waiting for an assignment. After 24 hours, they got orders to head to Feishui.

The first day, Li and three other women were told to watch the group's supplies so they wouldn't be stolen, which she did patiently from her red yoga mat until the men returned.

Most of the men were assigned to help a village leader determine a way to hike up to some houses and help residents retrieve important items.

Dai, who had studied medical forensics in college, was assigned to the medical team. But there were about a dozen doctors and nurses for half a dozen patients, so he spent most of the day fetching bandages and pills.