Marketing Intern: Amazing 150 Some Days!| 4 min read

Just a quick introduction to who I am! I am Logan Lugo, a university student with too much on his plate academically. I study International Business, Marketing, and Management as my academic focus and minoring in Mandarin Chinese. I plan to start my own business later on in my life, and hopefully be able to live freely as I invest in other businesses/real estate.

Logan with his friends in Shanghai

Growing up, I have been passionate about appreciating the different cultures in Asia and it started with my late grandpa. I grew up watching ‘Karate Kid’ and ‘The Three Little Ninjas’ with my younger siblings every time whenever my grandpa would come up to visit all of us. It is one of the many favorite memories I have of him. Back when I was about 8-10 years old, I still remember that Sunday morning very vividly when I happened to click through the TV directory and saw that they were airing a rerun of The Three Little Ninjas. When I watched the movie again, and saw how beautiful the Japanese concrete jungles with its electrical telephone ‘vines’ were as the subways passed over people, I made a decision right there and then that I had to go and see Asia someday. I still remember how beautiful and warm the weather was that morning, and what my mother was cooking for breakfast and how it tasted. She made really good home-style donuts, and we haven’t had them in years. I just simply fell in love with the idea of coming to Asia that morning.

Now that I’m back in China for the second time, and for a much longer duration this time around, I have learned so much personally and professionally. I am more than happy to share what I have learned from my perspective with you all!

Logan with his colleagues

Since I have been in China for a short while now, it would be easy to assume that by now, even after studying mandarin Chinese for four years at university, my mandarin would be 特别好的Tèbié hǎo de (particularly good). For any language you study, if you do not make an effort to include it in your everyday life, making an effort to include a new language in your life will go a long way. With that being said, at my first company that I worked for, 85% of my waking hours revolved around English, 5% would be reading Chinese characters from the road signs and subway stops (that I no longer pay attention to during my daily commute to the subway and to/from work) and the other 10% would be from overhearing spoken mandarin at work and elsewhere.

Now that I am currently working for a Chinese start-up company in a shared office space, the majority of other peers are only able to speak mandarin! So now, it’s the opposite of the former “percentages” here. My boss and I would often use mandarin, and I also recently had a progress review on my research almost entirely based in mandarin Chinese!

Logan with his friends in Beijing

As what I’ve learned from my internship experience was that we would learn best simply by doing. Making an effort to utilize mandarin in your everyday life, and within each function and form, your mandarin will improve considerably quicker than as if you only studied Chinese words and grammar structure in a classroom setting. For example, you could change your language settings to Mandarin Chinese, and trying to practice what you’ve learned in your Chinese class with the taxi/uber drivers.

I plan to come back to China someday in the near future, and perhaps consider studying Korean and Japanese as I wouldn’t mind living there for several years or so!