Internship Business Volunteer Stories, China

Internship Business in China - Laura Coughlin
I had always dreamt of travelling after university. But straight out of graduation and a fresh degree in hand, I was worried that a backpacker holiday would be a step back when kick starting my career. Projects Abroad offered me the solution, immersing myself in an entirely new culture whilst gaining invaluable work experience.

Internship Business in China - Richard Goodrum
It is funny how I was reading similar stories to this one about 4 months ago, rather nervous and feeling totally under prepared for my forthcoming adventure! I spent 3 months in the epic city of Shanghai or 'Shangers' as we came to call it and to be honest these were the best few months of my life. Shanghai has over 20 million people (officially, probably a fair bit more) and for that reason there is always something happening.
I worked for a small company called 'ThinkSmart', where people were extremely friendly (always giving me Chinese sweets, although they sometimes tasted like plastic), and I would regularly give and receive lessons in English/Chinese. If you get to know Chinese people very well, you will find they are very friendly and eager to please.

Internship Business in China - Dorothee Garth
On my first day I was told that my future task was working for the Xintiandi Operations Department. I didn't have any idea of what to expect, but I found out soon enough that I wasn't there to prepare the coffee. My boss told me about a new project, serviced apartments with a fitness and spa club, which are under construction next to Xintiandi and about to be opened in September 2006. He had a rough idea of what kind of facilities he wanted to be included. I was briefed on the rough structure of the project and it was up to me to sort out the details. That meant a lot of research and collecting of information as well as editing it all, giving it a nice layout, putting it all together in a folder and finally calling it a concept paper.

Business (Architecture) in China - Trevor Archer
When I arrived in China, I was pathetically ill-prepared. I'd heard that Shanghai was growing so quickly that any guide book was pretty much out of date before it was published, however, retrospectively the books might still have been worth a cursory glance.Projects Abroad offered to meet me at Pudong airport but I opted to take a taxi from the airport to the PA office in Pudong -a forty kilometre journey. I had the address written in Chinese on a piece of paper as PA had warned me that the taxi driver wouldn't speak English. When I tried to pay for the journey in US dollars the driver's turbulent response marked the beginning of an extremely steep learning curve. That was the first time I had to thank the PA staff for helping me out of a sticky situation.

Internship Business in China - Arti Krishna
My trip to Shanghai was full of wonderful and amazing experiences and my inhibitions quickly dissipated. Any questions I had or problems I encountered were dealt with efficiently and during the six weeks I spent in Shanghai the relationship between some PA staff members and myself became more of a friendship than a working relationship. I was fortunate enough to be located in a pleasant, air-conditioned flat very close to the PA office, the metro station and a comprehensive supermarket. I was shown the local restaurant (which served a range of delicious Chinese dishes), given a tour of the supermarket and taught how to use the metro card and get to work.

Internship Business in China - Dom Elliot
I spent six weeks as an intern in a PR company called Sunnybund in Shanghai. I had a really wicked time. My office was full of friendly staff, most of whom could speak good English. My supervisor spoke English very well. even correcting some of my proofreading once! I had plenty of time to get to know my colleagues and even learn some Chinese while also getting some interesting projects to run. Probably the most rewarding of these was raising awareness for a fund-raising project for Shanghai's largest temple, the Jing'an Temple. I was given a free rein in this and had to take the initiative.