Chinese-American volunteers perform at the Shanghai Pavilion.

Chinese-American volunteers perform at the Shanghai Pavilion.

Chinese-American volunteers perform at the Shanghai Pavilion.

Twelve Chinese-American girls yesterday began guiding visitors and helping to stamp souvenir passports in the Shanghai Pavilion as volunteers.

The girls, all around 13 and from a dance school in the United States, accepted an invitation to work at the pavilion and will stay in the city for about 10 days. Zhou Jie, the dancers' teacher, said the purpose to let them work on site was to enable a full experience of the Expo that they could share with friends on return to the United States.

They will also dance outside the pavilion where people need to wait for about two hours to enter the host city's section in China's Joint Provincial Pavilion.

Holly Liu, 13, from California, yesterday stamped visitor passports, a job that many pavilion staff have complained about because of the excessive time involved in meeting demand. But Liu enjoyed the job that she said let her meet many different people.

"It's not hard and I want to do the job longer," she said.

Steffi Hu, 17, from Houston is the oldest of the troupe and her task was to talk with waiting visitors and write reports for the Expo website. Hu was excited that so many visitors wanted to talk with her despite her Chinese not being good.

Other foreign volunteers recruited to work for the World Expo mostly have been from Japan and Spain.