Read our students' stories that start from the CUHK and go further beyond.

My internship at Hong Kong Trade Development Council’s Tokyo office was a fruitful and rewarding experience. During my month at the office, I was entrusted with a variety of duties that are extremely relevant to my major. Furthermore, some of it is very important to the Hong Kong Trade Development Council. My supervisor was the Corporate Communication Executive of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council’s Tokyo Office, and she is responsible for the public relations of the organization in Japan. Through assisting her in her work, I was able to see firsthand and participate in PR activities on an international scale.

My main duties under my supervisor were translating media releases by the Hong Kong office into Japanese and summarising the daily news written by Japanese media on Hong Kong. The media releases are uploaded onto the HKTDC’s Japanese website and distributed to Japanese media outlets and keeping summaries on daily news written on Hong Kong helps my supervisor keep track of major events, the attitude of media outlets on Hong Kong and to use certain news as material for social media posts. In carrying out these tasks I increased my Japanese proficiency and found out a lot about trade between Hong Kong and Japan. Aside from my main daily tasks, I also engaged in assignments such as meeting media and PR agency representatives, searching for relevant magazines and online media to consider for advertisement, translating Hong Kong company descriptions for entry into sourcing fairs, and more. I was amazed by the amount of work that goes into organizing events that most Hong Kong people take for granted. I saw the managers of the office making calls and sending emails extremely frequently to coordinate the logistics of Japanese exhibitors every day, while my supervisor and I were working hard to publish promotional materials for the events and arranging for Japanese media trips to the fair venue. It gave me a newfound respect to these events I never cared about in the past, as well as for the effort that goes into promoting trade between Hong Kong and Japan.

Personally, I have discovered my talent in translating, as my translations were praised by my supervisor to be faster and better than previous interns. My confidence increased and I have a clearer career perspective than before because of this experience. This internship was also the only positive experience I have had being employed, even though I was not rewarded financially. It has led me to believe the type of work impactful on the world is more fulfilling to me than less meaningful but highly paid ones. This experience was worthwhile to me as it helped me know myself in these two ways and letting me gain hands-on experience in a Japanese work environment.