As the 40-day Spring Festival travel rush this year began on Friday, expressway authorities in Anhui province were prepared. Their most important tool was a smile.

Yu Jing, 27, an expressway toll collector in Anqing, said she was proud of all the friendly smiles she had shared over the past six years, even though people seldom knew her name. She said she feels the smiles made a difference.

The company has made smiling a working standard for its more than 6,100 toll collectors, who are instructed to keep smiling as long as drivers can see their faces.

Yu leans out the window of her booth to take a toll card handed up by a driver. She states the toll sum, takes cash or guides a driver making a mobile payment. As she returns the invoice, she wishes every driver a happy journey and life.

Vehicles with electronic toll collection devices usually pass stations in "ETC" lanes, and the payment is made automatically. "But some drivers tell us that they deliberately choose the human service lanes even though they have ETC access, just to see our smiles," Yu said.

She does a lot of smiling during her eight-hour daily work shift.

Anhui expressway authorities began exploring smiles for workers in 2007 and spread the measure to all its toll stations in 2008. They found that simple smiles effectively improved travelers' experience, reducing conflicts and even accidents.

Wang Jianhong, head of the Anqing toll station, said Anhui was the country's first province to make expressway workers' smiling service a regional standard.

"Entering the expressway network, the drivers could be in a rush. After a long journey, they may be tired or restless, especially during rush hours," he said.

Anhui Transportation Holding Group was founded in 2014 and soon required window workers not only to smile for customers but to smile naturally and genuinely. They later expanded the rule to other areas, including service zones along expressways.

Chen Qing, assistant to the head of Anqing station, was among the earliest trainees. She was a particularly good smiler and became a smile trainer. She's now in her 50s.

"Only when we truly recognized the value of smiles could one naturally appear on our faces," said Chen, who was elected as a delegate to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2022.

"Working in our small booths, each of us may encounter hundreds or thousands of people every day," Yu said. "If smiling were not a must, we might find ourselves displaying negative emotions sometimes, and it would be sad to make customers feel bad."

Instead, many drivers now greet her in a friendly way, sometimes praising her professionalism with a compliment or thumbs-up, she said.

The positive feelings go both ways. "I become happier when I know the drivers are happy," said Yu, who was a delegate to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Youth League of China in 2023.

Chen and Yu both have won many honorary titles, but they both think the most glorious honor comes from the people they serve.

One day, Chen encountered a couple who had been working and living in their truck for two years.

"Their hard life touched me so much that I picked some vegetables for them that we had grown in the station's garden. The woman almost burst into tears," Chen said.

"Goodness does not necessarily show itself through great deeds. It often starts with small things — like a smile."

Chen Xinyu and Yan An contributed to this story.

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