Field report: Johann in China

Hello “China-interested-students” out there,




My visit at the "Chinese Wall"

my name is Johann. I'm 21 years old and I'm a dual student of the Grimme Landmaschinenfabrik GmbH & Co. KG which is a company assembling and selling agricultural machines in more than 100 countries all over the world and seated in Damme, Germany. I’m studying industrial engineering and additionally will do an apprenticeship for industrial businessman in four years. Therefor I am studying at the FHWT in Diepholz, also Germany.

This year my company offered me the opportunity to go to Beijing in China for six weeks to work on a project in the financial department there. I agreed, so some preparations for this trip had to be done: First thing to do was to apply for a visa, but this wasn't so easy. To obtain a visa for china I needed an invitation from the company where I wanted to work and I had to specify where I’ll live by this time.  Moreover I had to refresh my vaccinations and also needed vaccinations against hepatitis A and B and typhus.  In Beijjing, I lived in a hotel downtown and was accompanied by a colleague who also has to work there for six weeks.

When we arrived at the airport in Beijing it was six o’clock and we were picked up by a driver who was arranged from the human resource manager from Grimme China. When we sat down on the backseat of his car, we were suprised because we couldn’t find any seat belts or something like that.  He brought us to our hotel which was very good. Most of the employees there spoke English quite well so the communication in the hotel was easy.

The working time and working hours are the same like in Germany: 40 hours a week and saturday and sunday are free. Every morning a driver picked us up and drove us to the company which was about 30 kilometers away from the hotel. The traffic in China is crazy and dangerous for pedestrians and west Europeans. Chinese drivers frequently use the horn as the gas pedal. When the space on their side isn’t enough to overtake the bus or the truck before them they either use the opposite line despite oncoming cars or the lane on the right side which normally is reserved for scooters and bicyclists. In the Rushhour (which is between 6-10 o’clock in the morning and 5-8 o’clock in the evening) we needed more than one hour for the 30 kilometers every day. 

When we wanted to go out on the weekend for sightseeing or shopping we had to go by taxi or by subway. The taxis in Beijing have a standard price for directions of 13 RMB. One should be careful though, because some of the taxi drivers try to make fixed prices for foreigners which are much higher than normal prices or they take a detour to increase the price. The price for using the subway is incredibly low. For 2 RMB (22 Cents) you can drive wherever you want. You get a ticket when you go inside and you have to give it away when you leave the subway station. Even in the subway, there sometimes is a rush-hour, so you better are not afraid of body contact when want to use it.


The Chinese food is strange and I didn’t like the most of it. Chinese people eat the same things for
breakfast, lunch and dinner. Rice and soup are the foundation. Every working day, we had Chinese lunch in the company but I couldn’t really identify anything of what I ate. The meals mostly are very simple and composed of different vegetables, eggs and some meat or fish. When you want to eat meat or fish you should be careful because normally they still contain bones. Moreover we only ate cooked food because, compared to Germany, the hygiene in China often is very poor.




The opening hours for super markets, shopping centers, restaurants and clothing stores are different than in Germany. Most of the stores don’t close before 1 o’clock in the night and there are many shops on the street which only open in the evening.

All in all I have to say that I enjoyed the experience working in China. Although I have to attune to some strange traditions in this country very different to Germany it was a nice trip.