Intern's Story: Bram, Holland   

Hi. My story in Shanghai differs a bit from the interns’ stories you might have read before, in that I’m not “just” interning, but working on an applied Bachelor Marketing thesis at Xu Bo Art and Culture Exchange in Shanghai. Still interested? Please read on!

It all started earlier this year, end of August, when I arrived at Xu Bo Art and Culture Exchange. My first impression: a small, well-oiled and typical Chinese organization. And this turned out to be fairly accurate guess. Being a Westerner and accustomed to Chinese way of business life in theory through university education, but lacking practical experience regarding Chinese business affairs, this corporate placement provided me the opportunity to have a taste of it.

Coping with the difficulties encountered throughout the length of my stay at Xu Bo provided several challenging moments, such as adjusting to the different way of working in China, the language used in the office and in the outside world and the completely different environment. The experienced and knowledge gained about China prior to my working period at Xu Bo Art and Culture Exchange felt as a considerable beneficial for me. To give you some examples, I didn’t experience a so-called “culture shock”, as commonly occurring at volunteers at Xu Bo, as living and working in China. On a general level, I knew what to expect from a corporate placement in China. All with all, I can say working in China gave me the practical insight of how a Chinese business is operating in a metropolitan city as Shanghai, and which aligned to my of goals I was interested in learning more about. In addition, this placement gives me valuable experience, which I, from a professional perspective, will certainly utilize in the future.

Apart from working at Xu Bo Art and Culture Exchange, there was the leisure time to experience the Chinese way of living by exploring bustling Shanghai and its nearby cities and beyond. Travel-wise, I was able to do a fair bit of traveling across China. Together with volunteers and interns from Xu Bo Art and Culture Exchange, we traveled to cities and sights of interest, including Suzhou, Huangshan, Nanjing and Southern China’s Yangshuo. These trips were a true delight among all those present and offer us the opportunity to experience the rich Chinese culture, history and its breathtaking points of interests. The unbelievable tasty and affordable Chinese food, the challenges to overcome through to being able to not fully able to comprehend the language, the sudden changes that occur in daily life, working at Xu Bo Art and Culture Exchange and the people from all across the globe I met during my stay in China, made my time in China highly appreciative and will sure be a lasting memory.