Today Ben and I start our fourth day of work at NCR. So far, Beijing has proved to be a very interesting and very busy place. Our work day starts at 8:30 and ends at 5:00. Most employees work overtime too! My host mom explained that the boss buys everyone dinner if they have to work overtime, so it's a pretty good deal. The last few days I've taken the company shuttle bus to work. There are roughly ten shuttles that drive employees to and from work every day for free. Although I have to walk 20 minutes to get to the bus stop (through crazy China traffic!), it is very convenient. As Ben mentioned in his last post, it is the end of the quarter here, so everyone is extremely busy and caught up in projects. As such, they don't have alot of "intern-friendly" jobs for us to do. So far I have mostly been working in the finance department; my job is to fill out tax invoice forms, a job that is about as exciting as it sounds. Although the work is tedious, it's interesting to see how financing works (at least to some degree). My "mentor" employee, Eric, also gave me an interesting assignment the other day. I checked summaries he had written in English for a comprehensive list of various company expenditures. It was really interesting to see where the company spent it's money with regard to it's employees. Eric has informed me that I will mostly be recieving data input jobs for the remainder of my internship; hopefully I will be able to learn more about how the finance team operates.
My host family has been extremely kind to me; they have done their best to give me Western food on a regular basis (don't worry, I'm still eating a ton of Chinese food!). They do not speak a great deal of english, so I have had to practice my Chinese in order to communicate. I really believe that being completely immersed has improved my chinese. I am starting to understand more of what people say, and can usually respond (even if it is in chin-glish). Last night my host mom's old college friend stopped by to visit on her way back from a vacation in Singapore. She had an adorable eight year old daughter, who was very stunned to hear a strange American girl speak Chinese to her. We all went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner, and had a great time! I was a little apprehensive when my host mom used the Disney movie "The Little Mermaid" to explain one of the dishes on the table (Ursala- to describe octopus tentacles), but the meal was pretty good. Another interesting thing I've noticed about my host family is their apparent fixation with Chairman Mao. Two nights ago, they proudly served me Hong Shao Rou, Chairman Mao's favorite food. Yesterday, my host mom gave me a lengthy explanation as to why Chairman Mao was reffered to as the "son of China" (he brought 'warmth' to China). I was aware that Chairman Mao was still reverred in China, but I had no idea it was to such a large degree.
Hopefully Ben and I will continue to learn more about how the company operates, as well as enjoy our time with our host families.
I am assigned to do the blog on Saturday, but Ben and I will be out of town with my host parents for the weekend and we probably won't have computer access. I may have to update the blog on Friday or Monday. Thank you for your patience! Wish us luck
-Julie
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