Kristian Muthugalage: How I got an internship from China ? My internship in Chengdu in 2017

How I got an internship in China ?

Internship for Laurea University of Applied Sciences
In February 2017 I decided that I would do my internship in China. My other choices were South Africa, New Zealand and Brazil. I just had the desire to do my internship in one of these countries, but I had no contacts in any of these countries. I study business administration, but I had learned videography and photography on my own, so I knew I would be able to get a marketing job somewhere eventually.

Difficulty of finding an internship abroad
Our school has a list of international internships, but the list is so short and most of the internships are for students from other faculties. I searched for some paid internships online, but I could only find websites and they were only offering internships that you have to pay for. At that point I understood that there are a lot of people who are even willing to pay for someone to get an internship, which would look good in CV. This didn't match with my plans, I decided that I want to get an internship where I get paid and where they send me to different locations to take pictures and film with my drone and DSLR camera. Fortunately I only had to send 13 applications, before I got my internship from Chengdu. I was prepared to send 100 applications, but luckily I got the internship before that. Still figuring out how to find an internship wasn't easy. I googled the locations that I wanted to visit myself in China, then I googled the closest big cities close to these places and searched for the travel agencies offering tours to these beautiful locations where I wanted to travel myself. I sent e-mail to the first 3-4 tour agencies that google suggested. From the 13 companies that I contacted only 2 answered. The other answer was no and the other was yes. Then I just negotiated about the terms of our deal and started my visa application to China.

My internship deal
3000RMB per month, not much but better than nothing
8-day trip in Tibet, from Lhasa to Mount Everest and back
4-day trip from Chengdu to Jiuzhaigou and Huanglong
8-day trip in Mount Siguniang
2-day trip in Ya'an

So I had a monthly salary and on all the trips all expenses were covered except food. The trips were incredible and especially the trip in Tibet would have cost quite much so all in all this deal was really good for me. During my internship I went to my sponsored trips and then worked at the office about 2 weeks before going to a new place to film, so this was exactly my dream internship.

What was expected from me ?
- Create content on the websites www.discoversichuan.com and www.budgettibettour.com
- Write articles about popular travel destinations
- Edit videos and photos

My internship company
The company was quite small where I worked, they have 6-8 employees. The boss, his business partner and the IT guy had all been working previously in the same company before the establishment of this travel agency, which was about 4-5 years old. The atmosphere in the company was really good and I really enjoyed working there. You can see my vlogs on youtube, which are only in Finnish now, but there you can see that we really had fun working together.

Chinese Visa
The Chinese visa was a bit problematic. It's not that easy to get a 3-month visa. In the beginning I found out that I couldn't get a working visa for an internship. I got a business visa in the end. The whole process is too hard and messy, so I contact me if you want some details.

My Internship facts
- I spent 88 days in China
- 5200m at Mount Everest basecamp is the highest place where I have been
- I made about 30 videos during my internship
- I wrote about 70-80 articles for the travel agency's websites
- I lived in 3 different AirBnB apartments
- I got 700 euros from my school for the internship
- I saw giant pandas for the first time
- I managed to have a few basic conversations with Chinese people
- A Chinese taxi driver lifted his ass a bit from the seat and farted like it was totally normal to do that
- I was annoyed by some people who even spat inside the bus or some buildings
- I learned a lot about tea culture in Ya'an
- I learned a lot about Buddhism in Tibet
- I got my favorite drone videos in Jiuzhaigou and Huanglong
- The Sichuan earthquake of 2017 struck Sichuan during my stay, but I didn't feel anything in Chengdu

Internship vlog
If you want to see how my internship was, check out my vlog videos on youtube. My channel is https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFLeP50UaVU9jcv568eflTQ

My compilation videos

Tibet compilation: Lhasa-Yamdrok Lake-Karola Glacier-Mount Everest