6 p.m., Saturday, October 20, 2001, Shanghai International Airport, Pudong: After a 23-hour flight from BWI, I arrived in China for an internship with Maryland Business Center, China. The internship fulfilled requirements for my degree in interdisciplinary studies with a concentration in "Political and Administrative Sciences: U.S./Asian Economic Relations."

My good friends Dr. Fa and Huang Jun, who both studied at UMBC, were there to pick me up. It was good to see them again. The last time I was in Shanghai was the summer of 1999. There was a tremendous amount of construction taking place in Shanghai/Pudong at that time, and I was eager to see what construction progress had been made to this beautiful city near the mouth of the Chang Jiang.

Leaving the airport for my hotel I noticed many new buildings, including a giant new center of buildings across the Huang Pu River from Shanghai in Pudong. It reminded me of lower New York City with its many skyscrapers. Pudong has the tallest building in China (3rd in the world), the Jin Mao building, and the 3rd tallest freestanding structure in the world, the Oriental Pearl TV tower (tallest is the CN Tower in Toronto) in this architecturally stunning part of downtown.

Turning a corner I saw my new home for the next three weeks, the Pudong Sports Hotel. It is part of a sports complex that has exercise equipment, outside tennis and basketball courts, a gym for volleyball and basketball and a health club. The most interesting part of this hotel is that it is built around a stadium, similar to Toronto's Skydome. When I leave my room for the day I often see a soccer team working out on the field below. There is a drawback to living at the Sports Hotel: most mornings I would be awakened by the music from people doing their morning Tai Chi exercises. Oh well, when in Rome!

The Pudong Sports Hotel was a great place to stay. I saw a wedding reception in its restaurant and you could hear live music in the lounge until 4 a.m. It was a convenient five-minute walk to The hotel is a convenient five minute walk to the subway, which I used to go to my internship at Maryland Business Center China (MBCC) in downtown Shanghai, and is located in a mixed business and residential area with stores and shopping nearby, providing a sense of neighborhood.

Greater Shanghai is a world class city of over 13 million people, and has hosted international competitions and conferences, such as the Asian Pacific Economic Conference (APEC) that President Bush attended in October 2001. The Huang Pu River separates Shanghai from Pudong. This city (Pudong), which consisted of farming fields just over ten years ago, has been transformed into some of the tallest and most stunning buildings in the world let alone China. Mere words cannot do justice to the beauty of the view from the Huang Pu looking at both sides of the city.

The staff at MBCC was great and the location-an office in the American International Center at Shanghai Center-with the view of downtown Shanghai, was fantastic. The MBCC office is in the Ritz Hotel complex. (President Bush stayed at the Ritz when he attended APEC 2001.)

On my first day at MBCC Shao Ning, the director, asked me to attend a business lunch with a Maryland businessman in the satellite industry. I cannot go into detail about the conversation but the food was par excellent. Lunch was at one of the four restaurants in the Ritz and consisted of four dishes with some of the best dumplings and soup I have ever tasted.

After lunch Mr. Shao went over some of the details I would be addressing during my internship with MBCC. He told me about MBCC and its role in helping Maryland businesses get started in China. MBCC had assisted RTKL, a Maryland architectural firm, receive the bid for the Shanghai Scienceland project, a beautiful science museum in Pudong. Companies from three countries were in contention for the Shanghai Scienceland contract. RTKL was awarded the project and completed a fantastic building that complements its surroundings in Pudong.

MBCC is also involved with the China Executive MBA Program at the University of Baltimore Merrick School of Business. Shao Ning suggested that I concentrate on these two areas for my internship paper along with helping on a few ideas for MBCCs' future growth.

Later that week I was asked to attend a meeting with a section chief in the Education Commission of Shanghai. Mr. Fu was from the Municipal Peoples Government and wished to come to the United States for study. He told us that he had received funding and wished to improve his English and take some administration courses, but he was not sure where he wanted to study in the U.S. Mr. Fu saw MBCC in the Shanghai phone book, so he came to the office for some information.

During the meeting I informed Mr. Fu that UMBC had hosted several groups from China and I would check with our English Language Center (ELC) to see if they could accommodate him. Several emails to and from ELC in the following day and I had Mr. Fu's information. The emails take time to answer because Shanghai is twelve time zones away, so when you are working at UMBC, Shanghai is sleeping and vice versa. With the information and the positive responses Mr. Fu received, he decided on UMBC and plans to enroll here soon.

My internship at Maryland Business Center China was a once in a lifetime experience. Shanghai/Pudong is one of those places everyone should see and experience to feel the real life pulse of the city.