Sabine May is a German student who interns in Qingdao, East China’s Shandong province.

BEIJING - My name is Sabine May, I come from Germany and I was doing an internship in the beautiful coastal city of Qingdao during the summer of 2011.

I came back in April this year for another internship in a different field to further improve my working experience. I am studying at the Ludwigs- Maximilians- University of Munich with China studies as major subject, and business and intercultural communication as minor subjects. I will finish my master next year in July.

Since I have been studying the Chinese language and culture as my major subject, I have never asked myself whether or not go to China - but when, where exactly and with which program.

I had three main intentions: 1) improving my level of Chinese 2) getting working experience 3) experiencing life in China.

With the program of Internchina I was able to fulfill each of these three: I took language classes in the mornings, worked for an import & export company in the fashion business during the afternoons and lived with a Chinese host-family. It was a busy, but very interesting and fascinating time.

Working in a Chinese company is a special challenge – although I have studied Chinese for 3 years before coming here, I was a little bit lost, when I was told to use a Chinese computer. This is how I learned the vocabulary for “save”, “cancel” and “delete”!

My tasks in the company were mainly in the fields of market development in Europe and Marketing/ Design. The manager of the company, who is also the head of design, gave me more and more tasks according to my skills and interests. Because she liked my ideas, I was even able to design bags by myself. Towards the end of my internship I was responsible for the design of the whole next summer collection while my boss went to a trade fair in Dubai. In China anything is possible!

Other than in Germany, here it is very common not to distinguish between work and private life. Often I had the chance to accompany my boss to dinners to meet her friends and business partners. For reasons of “inspiration” we went shopping together! When my parents came to visit me, she not only invited all of us for a delicious dinner, but also provided a private driver for three whole days.

The homestay with a young Chinese family with a 2-year old daughter was also very pleasant. I was able to practice my spoken Chinese, I had the chance to taste typical Qingdao dishes and get a deep insight into Chinese family life and culture.

Thanks to the help and kindness of many people, my boss, my lovely host-family and Internchina, I had an extraordinary experience in Qingdao. This is why I decided to come back. Now I am doing another internship in a HR agency, while preparing my master theses. Time goes by too fast – and I am hoping to come back next year, but then for a real job!