“shang you tian tang, xia you su hang”
- Yang Chao Ying, Yuan Dynasty poet.

Truly the Venice of the east, Suzhou lives up to its reputation as being one of the two paradises in China, the other being Hangzhou. It was here in paradise that I had the privilege of fulfilling my eight-week professional attachment obligation (May 12th to July 5th).

The two-month attachment to Suzhou was with a Chinese state-owned company by the name of Suzhou Zhenya Group Company.  It is the largest silk production company in the Jiangsu province, and has won numerous awards and prizes over its eighty year history. The staff was friendly and warm, and despite the initial cultural differences, we got along pretty well.  My organisation supervisor, a plumb and sprightly man by the name of Mr Zhang Dao Zhou, was most patient in supervising me, as was my staff supervisor A/P Luo Zheng Ying from Suzhou University.

Besides fulfilling my professional attachment obligations, the two-month overseas attachment was also a valuable opportunity for new experiences, meeting new people, making new friends, expanding my horizons and getting out of Singapore to see what was happening in the rest of the world.   The most memorable were the daily exercise of cycling to work on a broken down bicycle, the haphazard traffic, the late night haunts to roadside food stalls to savour the local dishes, the visits to the cosy homes of my Chinese colleagues, the wonderful Singaporean dinners at friends’ (Singaporeans working in Suzhou Industrial Park) apartments at the Singa Plaza, the local Suzhou cuisine (cheap but GREAT!), the visit to the Suzhou Singapore International School, and of course, the handover of Hong Kong to China. The opportunity to work in a communist country, in a complete state-owned company, was an experience in itself, even if not entirely relevant to where my future career was concerned. And then there were also the weekend visits to neighbouring counties such as Wuxi, Nanjing, Shanghai and Hangzhou.

The overseas PA programme was truly unique. For myself, the programme provided the opportunity to ru xiang sui su, a Chinese saying which literally means, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” something I truly enjoyed.  So this meant that I could travel as the Chinese do, eat what they eat, speak their language (my Chinese certainly improved), live as they do (even if I did stay in a two-star hotel with above average service). It was undoubtedly a valuable working and learning experience, and I do not hesitate in encouraging future sophomores to take advantage of this programme.  There is no doubt in my mind that the next opportunity I get to work in Suzhou upon graduation, I will certainly grab that opportunity, just as I (thankfully) did this one.