China.org.cn

It is hard to believe that I have been in Beijing for a week already.  It has flown by! Yesterday was my first day at work and it has been great so far.  I am in the English Department for China.org.cn, which is a branch of the Chinese Internet Information Center.  Basically there are three branches that provide online news, and we are one of them.  CIIC is owned and operated by the Chinese government since no news or broadcast organizations in China are private. There are 50 people in my department from all over the world including China, Mexico, the United States, the Netherlands, and Germany. The news is split into four groups, hard news (politics, war etc.), soft news (education, sports etc.), useful information (travel, leisure etc.) and mobile news. I asked to be a part of the hard news group and Oscar joined the mobile news group.  Oscar is getting his Ph.D. at UNC and his thesis is going to be about education and technology.  Basically, he wants to see how handheld devices such as smart phones and tablets affect different cultures and how they use them to learn, so this is a great place for him to start his research.  I chose hard news because it involves politics, which I am interested in pursuing.  We also have to do a project at the end of our internship.  Last year, the interns made a sort of virtual map that summed up everything they saw in Beijing (tourist sites).  Oscar is an expert in audio visual communication since he worked in online news/video production before coming to North Carolina to do his PhD.  In fact, he teaches audio visual communication at UNC, so I think we are going to do a video for our final project. We have not chosen a topic yet, but I am really excited to learn from Oscar because I know nothing about video production.  I will basically have the opportunity to take his class for free, so I am looking forward to it. Although the office is a pretty stereotypical news organization in some ways like the layout (rows of cubicles), I have to say that the atmosphere threw me off a little bit.  When I reported for the Daily Tar Heel the news room was absolutely crazy.  People were running around yelling, music was playing, phones were ringing, people were talking, typing, editing etc. The office here is the polar opposite; quiet.  Everyone talks to each other through instant messenger which is very efficient, but the office is incredibly silent.  If I talk to someone I feel like everyone can hear me and the office is an entire floor.  It further enforces the stereotype that Americans are loud and obnoxious and Chinese are quiet and respectful.  This atmosphere is initially very intimidating, but everyone has been so nice to me (specifically through instant messengerJ).  It is just very different from the U.S. I have learned that the stereotype that Chinese people are very cold is 100% false.  They come off that way because they often have a blank expression on their face, which Americans misconstrue as being cold. But if you talk to anyone here they immediately engage in the conversation and offer their help.  It just isn’t customary here to be blunt or forward. Anyway, overall my experience at the office thus far has been pretty good except for the cafeteria.  The food yesterday was pretty bad, so I sincerely hope it is better today.  I have Skype if anyone wants to chat, so shoot me an email and we will have a Skype date. 

Kristen J