I was a trainee in Shanghai, China from August 5th to September 27, 2002. I worked for a local private internet solution company, iVisions, under the supervision of Shanghai Yufeng Investment Consulting, which was my actual employer during the time.

My job was software design and development, and I took part in several small projects, in some of them working alone, and in others as a member of the design & development team. During these projects, I put to good use some of the theoretical knowledge and practical experience I had gathered on the subject beforehand, but at the same time I was required to become familiar with the development environment that the company had in place, as well as to get a deep and thorough understanding of the work already done by my colleagues, in some of the team projects.

I found my colleagues to be very kind and helpful, both in matters concerning the actual work, as well as in private difficulties I sometimes had. The example that best illustrates this is probably a case where I caught a bad case of flu, and two of my colleagues accompanied me to the hospital and ensured the employer would agree to give me the day off.

The volunteers of the local Iaeste committee were very friendly and in many cases went out of their way to make sure I had a great traineeship in China and that I left with the best of memories.

My accomodation was at a Chinese family's house, which was a great idea, since it gave me a perfect chance to practice speaking the language, as well as to see first-hand the local customs and to get to know the mentality of the people. The family that I stayed with had a boy, about my age, and luckily we had similar interests, resulting to endless conversations, even late at night. And the fact that my work site was quite far from work was compensated by the fact that in the bus I could recover the sleep I lost discussing with my roomate. :-)

My impression of China is too long to put in such a brief report, but if I had to put it all in one word, I guess that word would be "fascinating". I found that the way Chinese people look at the world and think is so different from the Western way, that not a day went by without an interesting experience to remember.

Unfortunately, the two months went by before I noticed, so I didn't have the chance to see enough of this wonderful country, its friendly people, and its local customs. So I will dare to say that I have set my mind on finding a chance to come again in the future, for a longer period, and with a much better knowledge of the Chinese language (Mandarin).

This is it. Thank you for two months I will never forget.