This week NXT Enterprise had a potential investor visit from China. Twenty seven year-old Stephanie is the CEO of a multi-million dollar industrial property development firm and the PR interns had the privilege of showing her around Perth and getting to know a bit about what she does. The only problem was that she spoke absolutely no English!
Learning about China in the international public relations unit, I remembered China has a very high power distance in professional settings so I was a bit nervous as to how the next couple of days were going to play out with us being on opposite ends of the business hierarchy, as well as the language barrier! To my relief Stephanie turned out to be completely different to what I was expecting. She was down to earth, sweet and oh so glamorous! The other interns and I spoke with her via a translator app we all downloaded onto our iPhones; the whole experience was hilarious but so rewarding. We learned that she comes from a very wealthy military family in China, it was through her family's support and push for her to get an education that she has become so successful at such a young age. Applying Hofstede's dimensions this reflects the highly collectivist nature of Chinese culture. She showed us pictures of her Ferrari and Lamborghini and snaps from her birthday party which 30,000 people attended! One of the interns had the job of taking her shopping and it was so crazy to see Stephanie come back with several bags of designer clothes; Gucci, Fendi, Prada, for 'everyday' wear she said. It was amazing getting to know someone from such a different world. She was calling us her friends, saying how grateful she was for meeting us and even gave us her number to keep in touch through an app called WeChat, the Chinese replacement for Facebook. It was so lovely!
The experience was a great networking opportunity and the insight I got into the life of China's business elite was so interesting. It just goes to show how varied PR work can be and you never know who you're going to meet as a PR professional!
This is my fellow PR intern Sam with Stephanie and some other NXT business associates :)
This is my fellow PR intern Sam with Stephanie and some other NXT business associates :)
Here's Hofstede's breakdown for Chinese culture for anyone interested: http://geert-hofstede.com/china.html
Only one week of interning to go! See you at the finish line!
Radhika Kayarat
15383945
Bentley Campus
15383945
Bentley Campus
1 comment:
Hi Rad!
That's such an amazing experience that you got to have as part of your internship. It's really great that you also got to apply your learning from the unit PR International to a real life situation i.e. PR officers dealing with international clients through a language barrier!
I bet it was such an inspiring experience too as she is so young. You had better stay in touch and visit her!
Good luck for your last week.
Cass
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