Overseas interns discover China as a land of opportunities

Dream chaser from Africa

Daniel Tolessa Negera comes from Ethiopia and studies electromechanical engineering at Hefei University of Technology in East China's Anhui province. His impression of China began with the movie Karate Kid, and when he grew up, he decided to pursue his own Chinese dream.

Negera was excited when he learned that he got an internship at a Suzhou-based cosmetics company in East China's Jiangsu province. "I like new challenges in my life. Leaving the comfort of staying at school with my friends during the winter vacation and doing an internship, where I knew nobody, was not easy," he says, adding that it was an amazing opportunity.

He worked for two months in the production department of the company. Every morning in the workshop, he needed to keep an eye on the machines and take samples, reporting product defects to the production line workers.

Thanks to the internship, he got hands-on experience with a lot of new machines and technologies, a great complement to his professional development. Under the guidance of his leaders, he also learned about a lot of standardized operation processes on production lines.

"The leaders supported me through the internship, especially my immediate boss. He treated me like a brother and I felt at home during my two months at the company," says Negera, stressing the close ties between people when talking about the internship.

Now his greatest wish is to explore and discover more about China, and he plans to seek more opportunities to study and work in China, which he describes as his "second home", and try to achieve his dream.