Once I had been in China for
two days, I went into my placement, at a law firm called King and Wood
Mallesons, for the first time. For the law nerds amongst you, King and Wood
Mallesons is a top law firm in China ,
established in 1993. It merged with an Australian Firm, Mallesons Stephen
Jacques in 2012 and with UK
firm SJ Berwin in 2013 (SJ Berwin is temporarily known as King and Wood
Mallesons SJ Berwin, which is a mouthful, but eventually the SJ Berwin element
will be dropped completely). This makes it the first global law firm to have
their headquarters in Asia . They have over
2700 lawyers, including more than 550 partners in 31 worldwide locations.
Spiel over.
Anyway, on my first morning, I
was supposed to go in about 9 (and I left in some seriously torrential rain)
when the PA staff called me and said my supervisor wasn't in the office. So I
finally got there about 11ish.
The building is brand new – part
of a giant shopping centre with lots of luxury brands - and on the 16th floor. (Interestingly,
I later noted in the lift that this building has a 13th floor and a
13A, but no 14th floor. I assume that this is because 4 is
considered an unlucky number in Chinese culture – its pronunciation sounds a
lot like the word for death – but it struck me as a bit ironic, because,
obviously, in our culture, 13 is considered to be unlucky, and yet this tower
block had two 13th floors!)
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| View from the Office |
It was a spacious office, with lots of glass and chrome and all very modern and whatnot, which was sort of what I expected, but after that, I found lots of and lots of differences to what I had anticipated.
When I got there, the
receptionist is wearing pink trainers, jeans and an Adidas t-shirt, as were
some of the lawyers. Very loud gobbing was common (and I’m
sorry, but I can never suppress a shudder when people do that, no matter where
I am. It’s rank) and when I came back from lunch everyone, and I mean everyone,
was napping at their desks, with the pillows they had brought in specifically
for this purpose, which the other intern said was totally normal. Random
men would occasionally wonder in and try to sell their wares. In fact, the office atmosphere was probably the biggest culture shock to
my system during my time in Chengdu ,
although I did manage to adjust fairly well (I think).
But they were all very nice,
which did make life considerably easier.
By 4pm, though, I still hadn’t been given anything to do – and my advice is, if you ever go on an internship like this, you have to be proactive and keep asking for work, or you won’t any and therefore you won’t get anything out of your experience. Eventually, I got sent a legal brief on the PRC rules for doing foreign investment in China which I read through, found quite interesting, and sent my supervisor a bunch of questions about it.
Anyway, in the process of reading this digest, I googled - well, no, the Chinese firewall is reluctant to let Google load very often, if at all, so I had to use Bing instead - an organisation here called the National Development and Reform Commission of the Peoples Republic of China. Bit of a mouthful, I know. This is its list of departments:
…The General Office, Department of Policy Studies, Department of Development Planning, Department of National Economy, Bureau of Economic Operations Adjustment, Department of Economic Operations Adjustment, Department of Economic System Reform, Department of Fixed Asset Investment, Department of Foreign Capital and Overseas Investment, Department of Regional Economy, Department of Western Regional Development, Department of North-eastern Region Revitalization, Department of Rural Economy, Department of Basic Industries, Department of Industry, Department of High-Tech Industry, Department of Resource Conservation and Environmental Protection, Department of Climate Change, Department of Social Development, Department of Employment and Income Distribution, Department of Trade, Department of Fiscal and Financial Affairs, Department of Price, Bureau of Price Supervision and Anti Monopoly, Department of Laws and Regulations, Department of International Cooperation, Department of Personnel, Office of National Economic Mobilization, Office of Key Project Inspectors, the NDRC Party Committee, Bureau of Retired Officials, State Bureau of Material Reserve, State Grain Administration and the National Energy Administration.
Seriously. For one commission. And is it only me or do several of them look the same?
Point is, learning a little bit
about how China
really operates while I was there ended up being quite interesting, seeing as
I've been completely ignorant of it before now.
On my second morning, things didn’t start out so well, because the way I was
shown how to get to the office the day before took me through the shopping
centre, which wasn’t even open when I
tried to take the same route and I ended
up getting lost.
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| King Kong Panda climbing the office *not really. He was part of the rooftop sculpture garden |
Still, when I eventually got there, word had spread that there was another intern in the office and I got a few things to do – for instance, one lawyer came and found me and emailed me a Sino-Foreign Equity Joint Venture Contract to look over and proofread) – and I got asked to collaborate with another intern, who’d already been there for a few weeks already, on a presentation about Chinese Investment in Europe.
One good thing about working here
was that all the employees and other interns were really welcoming and
friendly, and we went out for lunch with them a fair bit, usually to places I
would never have found on my own and which are clearly local haunts. This meant
that a lot of my ‘authentic’ food experiences were done in the course of my
internship, rather than by me alone.
There are eight culinary
traditions in China , and Sichuan cuisine is one
of them. Chengdu
was actually declared by UNESCO to be a city of gastronomy in 2011, in order to
recognise its style of cooking. According to Wikipedia, (and I would agree with
this assessment), the most prominent traits of Sichuan cuisine can be encapsulated in four
words; spicy, hot, fresh and fragrant.
For instance, on one occasion, we
went somewhere where I tried bamboo for the first time (not bad, although it
seemed to meet with mixed reviews amongst the other volunteers) and Chengdu
Hotpot, which is a specialty to this area and can't be found anywhere else in China , or so
they told me. It also lives up to its name. I swear there were about 50
chillies crushed on top of this dish alone, ignoring the amount that had been
mixed into the sauce. Chengdu
is a region that likes its spice! It was full of flavour though, and the spice
numbed my mouth as opposed to setting it on fire, which was not what I’d
expected. Anyway, once I got over the spice, I actually quite enjoyed it.
Another benefit of going to lunch
with the people from the office was that, of course, they all spoke Chinese,
which made ordering easier.
Or at least, mostly easier.
On another occasion (which I’m
still a bit traumatised by) someone said we were going to get chicken. Fair
enough, I thought. A dish turned up in a big bowl with loads of sauce and
vegetables, so it was hard at first to tell if anything was different. I ate a
piece of the ‘chicken’ and I didn't like it very much at all. It
was very chewy and just… not pleasant. About five minutes or so later, I picked
another (bigger and much more
suspicious) piece up – I was paying for this, after all – and was looking at it
dubiously, when I was informed that what I was actually eating was not chicken,
but Pig Intestines.
Anyone who knows me can, I’m sure, picture the expression my face at this announcement. Happily, there are no pictures.
But… I was in China, where this kind of thing is not uncommon, and I decided that if I really wanted to call myself a traveller, I couldn’t and shouldn’t be a wuss. So to give myself credit where credit is definitely (in my opinion) due, I took a deep breath and I did actually willingly eat the bigger (and upon further examination, much more intestiney-looking) bit. Honestly, I’m not sure I've ever been braver!
The problem is, it was no less gross than the first time, and this time I actually knew what it was. My brain was alternating between screaming at me, “How dare you willingly eat pig intestine?!” and repeating “It’s just pork, It’s just pork, It’s just pork” like a mantra the whole time. It was all I could do not to hurl while I forced it down. I actually thought I was going to at one point, but luckily I didn't embarrass myself.
Well anyway, this put me off my lunch a bit quite considerably. After that I stuck to the potato and lotus roots. Much less risky.
I made sure to have KFC that night. Call me a heathen, but a nice, safe chicken burger sounded like a good way to restore my… culinary equilibrium, if that’s even a thing. Something like that.
Back in the office, I continued to proofread and research and generally do internshippy things which I don’t need to describe in detail here. In fact, the only other thing I should mention in this post is how lovely my supervisor was when I approached him begging for a day off so I could go exploring.
…In BEIJING!
Next Time – China part 3: Hostels and Hiking
Vicky xx
PS. Today is my parent’s silver wedding anniversary. Congratulations Mum and Dad, I love you both so much xx
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