A Whole New Country

Post by Dan Byrnes; This is me interviewing Libor Secka, the Czech Ambassador to China.

Ni hao! This summer I am interning in Beijing, China. It is my first true international experience, and it has been outstanding so far!

I am working for the China Internet Information Center, specifically copy editing, reporting, and writing for the English department of China.org.cn, a government-run news web site.

There are several things that set this internship apart from other internships within the United States. First of all, it is courteous and hospitable for Chinese people to give small amounts of work to foreign visitors. So instead of an eight-hour day filled with work, I work on and off during the workday (which thankfully leaves time for blogging, posting pictures, and researching things to see and write about in China). For the most part, the interns are given more perks than the employees!

Also, the editors have full trust in the interns from the United States. Since our first language is English, they trust that we know everything about grammar, spelling and syntax. I was alarmed by this when I wrote my first story for China.org.cn and was told to place it right into the “Edited stories” folder without having a second pair of eyes scan it for errors.

Along with this trust comes the freedom to pitch story ideas to the editors. I have gotten paid to do some unforgettable things, like travel to the Great Wall twice and go to an underground Chinese rock show. They will even set you up with a Chinese co-worker to interpret interviews for you.

As for editing stories, the difficulty of this task can range from very simple to nearly impossible. Obviously, Chinese does not translate perfectly to English, so many times there are words or sentences (or paragraphs, or whole articles) that do not make sense. Talking through this with the writer usually helps. They use the AP Stylebook, though this does not help when I need to know China-specific things like when the Tang Dynasty ended. Thank goodness Google has not been completely restricted in China (yet).

The best part of the internship is the fact that I am in a whole new country. I have the evenings, weekends and holiday time to explore one of the world’s oldest civilizations. I’ve tried scary-looking food, debated politics with locals, posed in numerous photos as someone’s first foreign friend, participated in a swim competition (and won a set of knives!) and experienced so much more than I ever expected to do in one summer.

If you want to know anything about Beijing, China, or the internship, post a comment or e-mail me (danbbyrnes@gmail.com).