STAY ABROAD

CHINA

Sophia Jena

My name is Sophia Jena and since 2015 I am doing dual stud­ies at Scherdel. For my intern­ship I seized the oppor­tu­ni­ty to com­plete it in a for­eign plant. With a short hol­i­day at Christ­mas in Ger­many, I spent in all 8 months at the new Huzhou loca­tion as the first intern. First arrived there, I was cor­dial­ly wel­comed in a flat that Scherdel had rent­ed. I imme­di­ate­ly felt well. Then the adven­ture began. The small team on site is great and puts a lot of effort in mak­ing things work and mak­ing you feel well in Chi­na. The Chi­nese work­ing life is a bit strange at first. The biggest dif­fi­cul­ty of course is the lan­guage Some­times peo­ple talk with their hands and feet, even if it takes some time, every­one knows what you mean at the end. The plant is still in devel­op­ment, and it is excit­ing to see how the plant grows and grows. In the „small town“ with 2 mil­lion inhab­i­tants the leisure time is not neglect­ed either. There is so much to dis­cov­er! You just have to expe­ri­ence it, whether it is Bud­dhist prayer with monks in a tem­ple; hik­ing on one of the five sacred moun­tains of Chi­na; boat­ing in the vil­lage; drink­ing tea in a cat house; the big wall in Bei­jing; the ter­ra­cot­ta army in Xian; Lying on the beach on the island of Hainan (Chi­nese Hawaii).It is even pos­si­ble to walk through a park in Huzhou with­out meet­ing any­body. The smart-phone, for exam­ple, is a very impor­tant aspect in Chi­na, as in the mean­time almost every­thing can be paid at the touch of but­ton which is still incon­ceiv­able in Ger­many. Since I was so ent­hou­si­as­tic and the pos­si­bil­i­ty exist­ed from Scherdel side, I took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­tin­ue work in Huzhou plant for two more months (August and Septem-ber).After only 4 months in Ger­many it was amaz­ing to see how many things changed in such a short peri­od. Sud­den­ly you see new apart­ment blocks and even new streets. Also the plant grew incred­i­bly fast and many new employ­ees were trained. The enor­mous speed in which things hap­pen in Chi­na is unbe­liev­able. It is dif­fi­cult to com­pare Chi­na with Germany.I can only rec­om­mend to over­come cer­tain prej­u­dices and to trav­el to Chi­na. Oth­er­wise you miss one of the most beau­ti­ful coun­tries! For me my time in Chi­na was an extra­or­di­nary expe­ri­ence which I would not like to miss. Thank you very much for the support!