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We believe travel is more than just checking off sights. It’s about stepping into everyday life, connecting with real people, and sharing moments that stay with you. But it’s also about what you bring — your ideas, your energy, your skills. Here, you’re not just a guest; you’re part of something we’re building together. A community where giving and receiving happen naturally, and where every traveler becomes a contributor.
20 hours of help per week
Video Making: Create, edit and publish digital videos.
Party Promoter: Help organise and promote parties and social activities.
Content Writer: Write, edit and publish inspiring content.
Social Media: Maintain and update social media channels.
2 days off per week
Shared Dorm: You will have a bed in a shared room, which means you will share the same room with other travelers.
Discounts on Drinks: Get discounts for drinks and beverages from our bar.
Free Laundry: You can use our laundry room freely.
Free Parties: Get free entrance for the best parties in town.
Free Events: Get free entrance for the best events in town.
Language lessons: Take free language classes at our place.
Use our equipped kitchen: Feel free to use our kitchen and make your own delicious food.
Certificate: Get a certificate of completion after you finish your experience.
Fast Internet Access: High-speed internet for you to work remotely
Fluent English
Between 18 and 55 years old
Welcomes solo volunteers, couples, and partners of volunteers
Flights, Travel Insurance, Internal Transportation and Visa
Our cultural salon studio is called "Bu Yao Tai Er" (不要太二) — which roughly means "Not Too Silly" or "Not Too Goofy," . It is located in Nanshan District, Shenzhen. Our YouTube channel is: https://www.youtube.com/@ittakes2china.
Our model is simple: we plan fun and meaningful cultural activities offline, film them, and share the stories on our channel to inspire more people to love life, help others, and build a better world together.
At Bu Yao Tai Er, we serve light drinks such as coffee, juice, and beer, and have a bar counter, sofas, a swing, KTV equipment, and more. The volunteer dormitory is less than 1 km from the studio. It has a kitchen, bathroom, beds, AC, washing machine, fridge, kettle, etg. We don't provide meals, and we generally respect your personal space in the dorm, so volunteers can buy groceries and cook for themselves. Please treat the dorm as your home and help keep it clean and tidy, as new volunteers join every month.
Our customers are friendly, educated locals — mostly students, parents, and white-collar professionals — who pay to join our events. We hope volunteers will help plan, participate, and engage with customers, share fun and meaningful experiences together, and meanwhile help them practice English. You'll also help with light setup and tidying (arranging tables, chairs, glasses, basic cleaning, etc.). The studio is only 65 sqm, and we don't cook food here, so these tasks are very manageable.
What we'd love to offer you:
Shared apartment ( with kitchen, bathroom, AC, washing machine,fridge ,bed set etc.).
Daily Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese) lessons — a chance to learn or improve your language skills while you're here.
All drinks at cost price (e.g., coffee under $1 USD) — we don't believe in marking things up for volunteers.
A typical day at Bu Yao Tai Er salon studio might look like this:
13:00 – 14:00 — Chinese language lesson (Mandarin or Cantonese), taught by me or other staff.
14:00 – 18:00 — Afternoon session: board games, playing with children, chatting with customers.
19:00 – 23:00 — Evening session: themed cultural salons, English corners, or special events like team-building, World Cup beer nights, social mixers, or talks.
Volunteers may voluntarily negotiate and adjust their working schedules. For example, you can complete two shifts within a single day, working 2×4 hours.This way, you can have one more whole free day .technically ,you can finish all volunteer working within 2.5day ,and all the other 4.5days is totally personal free days in one week .
Everything is flexible. These are not rigid shifts — they're shared moments. We truly encourage you to bring your own ideas, your own energy, and your own cultural background into the space.
Special projects — your personal challenge (based on your interests):
We'd love to create a personal challenge project for you and help you make it happen. Here are some examples:
If you like Chinese chess, we'll teach you the relevant vocabulary and how to play, then go to a local park to challenge alaid-back elderly Chinese gentleman.
and olso , dance, Chinese song etg.when weather is fine , we can do outdoor challenges, like a coastal clean-up hike along Shenzhen's beautiful shoreline .
Video creation — important :
We plan to document real travel stories through our lens and share them online — showing authentic moments, the beauty of ordinary life, and spreading positive values . Especially welcome volunteers with experience in video creation. At the same time, we fully support volunteers in filming their own travel vlogs .
What we truly value is not the hours you put in — it's your alignment with our vision and your willingness to contribute your skills and energy to building this community together.
We cover the rent and operations. But the soul of this community comes from everyone involved — volunteers, customers, staff, partners, and even our online followers. You are not here to work for us. You are here to build with us.
A few things we hope you'll bring:
1．A bachelor's degree from a recognized, accredited university (this helps us find people with shared life experience and perspective).
2．Excellent English (native or near-native preferred — it helps with our video content and customer interactions).
3．A daily travel budget of at least 100 RMB (~$14 USD) for your own expenses.
We set these simple hopes because we want to meet great people to build with. we don't intend to make any money from volunteers. If you enjoy coffee, beer, or snacks here, you only pay the basic cost price (e.g., coffee under $1 USD). We're not here to profit from you.We understand that volunteering is a great way to reduce travel costs — that's totally reasonable. But we believe having a basic travel budget is important for a balanced and sustainable journey.
We especially want to avoid a situation where someone joins only to save money, without any real interest in sharing, contributing, or participating. We've seen that this kind of traveler often struggles to connect with other volunteers and doesn't truly engage with our activities. That's not good for them, and it's not good for the community either.
We're sharing these thoughts because we want you to truly understand what we're about. welcome to join us in building something fun, meaningful, and genuinely worthwhile. we'd love to meet you!
