I was luckily elected to enter the IAESTE-CHINA exchange program in 2001. I arrived at L¨¹beck, a harbor city in North Germany on Sep. 10th, 2001. There locates the headquarter of Draeger Iatric Technology Group, where I was to work for technology experience for half year.

Old-line and beautiful L¨¹beck
L¨¹beck locates in the south-east corner of Schlerschuge-Hersitaizhou, being a important port of Germany in Baltic Sea area. Its history can be traced to the beginning of 11th century, when Henry the Lion rebuilt the city after a conflagration in 1159. It became free city nation in 1226, and became the capital of the Hanseatic League in 1358 after many times' efforts to be prosperous. It is because of its special geographical location that it gradually became Pivot of the trade contact between West European countries and Scandinavia and Russia. In 17th century it transferred to belong to Prussia because of the prosperity of Prussia and the decay of the Hanseatic League. Thus it lost the prosperity of the old times. Not until the 19th century, it began to enjoy the economy resuscitation because of the open of the Elbe-L¨¹beck Canal, which strengthened the contacts between L¨¹beck and the inner land. During World War ¢òit was bombed by the Allied Force and many historic sites inside the city were destroyed. After the war it was assigned to West Germany, but chanced to be on the border of West Germany and East Germany. Together with another reason that it is beside Baltic Sea, thus it enjoyed rapid progress in economy and the inner city gained overall restore. And it became a travel city with industrial development, which attracts uncountable tourists in Jun. and Jul. because of its agreeable climate, full-bodied cultural atmosphere, and long sea beach.

The principal of local IAESTE, Uwe Bittermann, arranged me to inhabit in the students flat of Medical College of L¨¹beck and lent me a bicycle. The flat is in the south of the city and Draeger Co. is in the northwest of the city, so I had to ride bicycle through the inner of the city to work every day. Virtually I can take the shortcut to work narrowly beside the city. But when it was clear I always was willing to take a little more minutes through the main road inside the city, not because the main road was easy down along, but because there were limitless landscape in this road. The magnificent city hall in Gothic style of Middle Age narrated its changes in the sunlight of dawn; beside the hall the square was full of people hurrying to the morning market; young men in modern clothes in old complex with a history of about 800 years made people think of the changing of humanity with the comparison of the nearly motionless of nature. Inside the city there were six churches high to the clouds, with their jow echoing each other at a distance. I cannot help recalling the scene that knights of old times valiantly passed through the city gate when I rode passing the famous Holstein Gate.

I made the best of my holidays to travel along the Rhine, Sweden and Luxemburg etc. Although I was hurry in the tour, I did had some knowledge of European customs.

Nationality Characteristic
There always time when people talk about "Nationality characteristic". Evaluating the nationality characteristic is always influenced by the culture of home-land, thus the place where the observer grew and life style there play a decisive role on the conclusion. But there is certain basic generality, what is that of Germany, which descends from one generation to another then?

l Being dainty about order
Undoubtedly, Germans put great stress on order. Every one has his or her "position", even everything has too. My first impression of Germany on arrival was that the spaces, fields and architectures are in perfect order. And there are indicating boards and banning boards everywhere. The word,"ban" is among the first words I learnt there. Also, the arrangement of time reflects that Germans are dainty about order. Not only the work hours and study hours are regulated in writing, but also the business hours are strictly fixed. Almost every German strictly observes rules and regulations. As far as I had seen, there is no booking clerk in bus in Germany. And the driver won't trouble you with whether you has buy ticket or not, for it is not his responsibility. There is a board before buses, written with "Not take the bus without tickets for any reason, otherwise you will be fined 60 marks." It was said that passengers would be checked now and then by someone assigned by the Public Transport Co. Although I never encountered that case for that half year, every German consciously buys ticket or check monthly ticket when getting on. Germans are also highly disciplined as traffic rules are regarded, there being clear bound on pavements, bicycle roads and car roads. Once I rode on a lane and a car was to cross a crossroad when I almost reached the crossroad. The driver slowed down and stopped to one side of the crossroad, indicating me to go first by waving. Virtually, he could go first without influencing me. Until later I got to know that there is such item in traffic rules: "Cars should slow down and wait people, riding bicycle or walking, to go first at the crossroad without traffic lights." Especially, prescriptions on work hours of company, too, reflect the unity of discipline and freedom. As far as develop staffs are concerned, the work hours begin at any time between 6:oo am. and 10:00 am and end at any time between 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., rating 7 hours a day. The extra hours will be included into individuals' holiday time, which is not more than 3 hours a day, for people cannot work highly efficiently with full energy for more than 10 hours a day. The project group permitting, one can enjoy his or her holiday at any time.

l Elegant behavior
Germans behave elegantly when in public occasion. They try their best to respect others in proper moderation, and to follow rules docilely. Although, traditional, they greatly formalize in sociality occasions, they value this courtesy little. On the country, they value honesty and sincerity much more important than anything else.

In personal occasions, Germans prefer unconstraint. The bosses would play jokes on you after work and put down airs to talk with you about bothers in live, if they become your friends. I remembered that the boss of my section presented me with one box of eggs and laughed loudly with great pleasure at the sight of my expression at that moment. Still there was once a time when we enjoyed ourselves freely at a party on Christmas Eve, the project manager even danced with the secretary on table after having some drinks.

l Carefulness at work
Germans are greatly careful at work, especially in career lives. According to the tradition, "career" is different from "work", which is mainly to earn money while "career" is gained through learning like specialty. Each German takes pride on that they master one kind of professional technique and thus can work perfectly. The feeling of finishing a job outstandingly is very important to self-respect of German. Technical experts of companies, in my impression, are very confident, as can be shown even by their appearance while walking. Usually, the technical staffs are not so fast during work, but they work our credible fruit. Their teams are highly efficient because they seldom do poorly done work over again and they are dainty about discipline and order. Once the time limit for a project is decided, there is seldom the case that it cannot finish within the time limit. For modern industry production, the teams with such quality are very competitive. That perhaps is one of the reasons for the rapid development of Germany after World War ¢ò, I think. Such German spirit of team cooperation had its historical origins. Historically, Prussia is such country where individual ambitious obeyed team's interests---- Phyterly Emperor's father opened this atmosphere. It is said that he was diligent, thrifty, grudge Prussian soldier, fond of strong tobacco but extremely against the showy. His only belief in his lifetime was responsibility. Till now, responsibility is German creed, which comes to more reasonable and humanization.

In general German impress people with ability, carefulness, credibility, seriousness, order-keeper. They are friendly once they become close to you, but still are leisure, stiff and obstinate as well. Foreigners always wish them more lively and easy to please. German are inclined to make every opportunity to hold recreation activities and they like happy scene, they are want of the characteristic of genuine easiness.

Progress in technology and edification in management ideas
IAESTE stands for international association for the exchange of students for technical experience. It is naturally that my main gain was the improvement in my profession level during the international intern. Draeger is a multinational corporation, mainly involves producing the medical equipment of respiratory system, which perfectly match my specialty, Medicine Engineering. I was arranged to develop software at the section of developing anaesthetizing machine and was in the charge of the project manager of this team. My first task was to design a management software for software project for the project team using Perl, which is a totally new programming language for me. The project manager hoped me to master one more programming language, so he asked me to use Perl, not C or VB, which I had been acquainted. And it is also because Perl is one of the main languages used in UNIX system. In a few days, I found myself very interested in Perl, which has more powerful functions than I had expected. Urged by the interesting, I finished the task very soon. My second task was also related with the management of software engineering, during which I mainly learnt how to use a series of software for software project of Rational Co. For Chinese Universities, "software project" is only hot topic in oral discussion, but it seldom has chances to be applied to practice. I never imagined having such chance to learn it in practice, which made me extremely luck.

During working in Draeger, what impressed me most was the management over the process of developing, and that every process is orderly arranged and checked accordingly. Not to say those concerning products, even my design, the software only to be used in side of the company, had been verified for 3 times. Every time there came experts and they put forward lots of suggestion. It was not only the verification to products, but absolutely good chance to promote one's level. In project team, developers often exchange ideas, discuss problems and new technology. I often heard that two people are always more powerful than one alone.

IAESTE-GERMANY
Because I had worked for IAESTE-CHINA before, it was natural for me to pay attention to IAESTE-GERMANY, an original country member of IAESTE, after I came to Germany as an exchange student of IAESTE. IAESTE-GERMANY is attached to DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst, http://www.daad.de), which has a history of 70 years. Its main responsibility is to serve the universities of Germany for all kinds of international exchanges, and endeavor to introduce experts in high technology all over the world to Germany. DAAD itself has branches in universities throughout the country, so early branches of IAESTE often was in the charge of local DAAD. But now there are special personnel to take charge of IAESTE, due to the increase of workload and different quality of work. And together with volunteers, all kinds of work are launched in perfect order.

A student of Medical College of L¨¹beck received me when I reach there, took me to my abode and the company, introduced local climate, supermarkets nearby, and traffic routers to me and finally she presented me a handbook which was written by herself. I expressed great thanks to her and she told me that they come to serve voluntarily for one reason that they can improve language ability and make foreign friends, and for another reason that they will have more chances in later exchanges than other students who are not volunteers of IAESTE. The next afternoon I met the local principal of IAESTE, Mr. Bittermann, who is a staff of foreign affairs office of local Technology College He told me that he had been to China. He was very talktive when talking about Chinese customs and gave me "German customs" written in Chinese. He telephoned me about my situation in the later half-year. In fate-days, he would collect all the students in L¨¹beck to meet and organize some activities, sometimes leading us to visit the scenic spots and historical sites in the city, and sometimes taking us around cities nearby. When a branch of IAESTE holds special activities, it will invite students of IAESTE nearby. The diet is usually free, but students are responsible for their accommodations and transport fee. I had attended an activity held in Gotigen, full of happiness and harmony with students from various countries together. That night I slept on the sofa in the living room of students' door.

I benefit a lot in this experience in Germany. I am owning deep gratitude to IAESTE-CHINA who gave me the chance to Germany.