大家好!My name is Tamara and I just arrived to Chengdu 3 days ago, to start my 6-month internship at the Chengdu InternChina office as a Marketing & Business Development Intern and by that, following a road down the unknown. I am currently enrolled at Heilbronn University, doing my Masters in International Business and Intercultural Management, which is why I figured an additional international internship wouldn’t hurt.
I am also planning to write my Master thesis while being here.

After hearing so much about China in my lectures and reading so much about China in general, the cultural differences and all the challenges in terms of business, I decided to leave my comfort zone – big this time – and experience this country that everyone talks about but barely understands for myself.

After being told many amazing stories from a fellow student and a really good friend of mine about being employed at InternChina, I figured that will be my go-to option.
I applied, got the interview and the rest is history.
Although this isn’t my first time living and working in Asia for a longer period of time as I spent 2 semesters in Japan, China is beyond comparison!

Granted, the first few days have been pretty overwhelming! Not just in terms of the general new environment but also in an even broader sense. Even though I study intercultural Management and know concepts like the culture shock and high/low context and individual/collectivist countries etc., being here and actually living in a culture as different from my own definitely poses to be one of the biggest and most exciting challenges in my life so far.

The good thing though is, I am not alone in it. So many other people have had this amazing experience and „survived“ China. Not just ‘survived’ but also claimed that they have had one of the best times in their lives. That’s why I will challenge myself anew every single day- whether it’s ordering food at a local restaurant, surviving Chinese traffic or just dealing with the bathroom situation as a whole 😉