Prologue

I guess I should explain what I'm doing in Beijing.

I have an internship with the English Department of the China Internet Information Center (China.org.cn), a news and travel website. Myself and four other interns from North Carolina will be editing articles that have been translated from Chinese to English and pitching ideas and hopefully writing and publishing some of our own stories.

How did I get here? UNC hooked me up. I heard about the internship through the JOMC (UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication) News listserv, so I applied. It was supposed to only be open to reporting majors, but I e-mailed Dean Cole and asked him if I could apply because I was very interested. Needless to say, he let me apply and I had an interview with him, Dean Straughn, and Dr. Cloud. I didn't get selected.

Until I e-mailed Dean Cole and told him that I don’t like giving up so easily. I asked him if there was any way that the Center could take one more intern for the summer. Well, persistence paid off, and here I am. They allowed me to have a position if I agreed to go without a monthly stipend. Still worth it (I hope).

Brian, Courtney, and I are the third batch of interns from UNC to do this exchange. Every spring, the Center sends two staff members to Chapel Hill to learn from J-School professors and report back in the summer. They, in turn, pay to house UNC students (and I guess App State students also) for a summer internship.

It's my first time to Beijing… China… Asia. It's the longest I will have been away from North Carolina. I don’t know any Mandarin, and all I have is a Lonely Planet guide book. I'll be here until August 17. Let the adventures begin.