08 Jan Exhausted….but ready!
My first day in Shanghai was tiring. I had arrived in Shanghai at 6:15am. When I left through the baggage claim, I saw the Absolute nametags with their yellow lanyards. There were a few people sitting and then the Program Director had introduced himself. Then I started talking with other members of Absolute Internship. We waited until noon and took private bus to the accommodation for check in. After we arrived, the Director of Absolute Internship welcomed us with a bag of stuffs including food, drinks, notebook and information about Shanghai transportation and my internship. It was lovely. At night, we had a welcome dinner in a traditional Shanghai restaurant with all the Absolute interns. There were 5 types of Chinese tea and we enjoyed the Chinese buffet. As I am an Asian, sometimes I eat Chinese food and familiar with some Shanghai food. But some of the Australian interns have never tried it, so they were interested in every dish. There were various type of hot and cold food, which we loved!
In the next day of orientation weekend, we got an orientation time that introduces Shanghai and its difference with western culture. This is useful to recognize the difference and assists us in communicating with people in Shanghai. We also have a short lesson for learning Mandarin. The Chinese teacher was interesting and she taught us how to say numbers and some normal sentences in Mandarin. She showed us a video about the foreign students learning Mandarin in their school. I was surprised that most of them can speak quite well, even though they just learned for a short period. Then the Program Director took us to walk around our accommodation and after that we got free time to explore Shanghai at night, which gave me a chance to get to know some of the interns going through Absolute. Moreover, Absolute organized other group events, one which was having a famous Chinese cuisine – Dim Sum. We had a nice lunch there and then we walked through some streets and attractions for sightseeing. I had a good weekend, which was a good start before my internship started.
For my first day at internship, all of us met in the lobby and there was two buses transporting us to the work places. I felt excited to go to my work place and get to know my colleagues – I was really looking forward to my job duties and hope I can learn more skills in the company. When we arrived, the Program Director was going to the company with me and introduced the marketing director to me. Then the intern coordinator started introducing the background of the company, my daily job and what she expected from me. Nevertheless, she asked if I wanted to do anything in any specific field. It was an unforgettable moment for me because she cared for what I wanted to learn in the coming one month. She told me the instructions for my work and then I began to get familiar with my responsibilities. At lunchtime, my colleagues brought me out for lunch. They are all friendly and took good care of me. I feel lucky to work with them and work at this company. As most of them are from different countries such as Australia and America, I could learn more how they adapted into Shanghai’s life. Some of them prefer studying Mandarin to communicate with other colleagues and it is more convenient for daily life, for example you can take the food you want by ordering in Mandarin. In the afternoon, I did some marketing tasks for the company’s social media. This company’s marketing is mainly focus on social media as they are an international company but don’t have retail stores in Shanghai.
After my first day, our group went for dinner in a bar. We shared our first day of work experiences and got the opportunity to relax. I felt good about my first day of my internship even though I was tired.
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