The time I have spent interning at Horizon has been the happiest three months of my life. I’ve learned a great amount, I’ve made lifelong friends, and I’ve contributed to and witnessed one of the most amazing periods of human history first hand. The experience I’ve had here was totally different from my expectations, and will seem exotic and unimaginable to my friends back home. In fact Horizon is a special firm whose corporate culture and mission transcend the east west divide. It’s not unlikely that many Chinese will be surprised by my story.

On my first day I arrived excited and nervous. I had never worked in an office before, let alone a Chinese one. My imagination provided me with a vague image of what I was in for: the standard intern experience of making coffee, delivering notes, photocopying forms, and staring at a computer screen waiting for instructions. To this I added my outdated American stereotypes about Asians, and wondered how many bottles of whine and cartons of cigarettes I would have to buy to appease my bosses. My main goal was to endure the internship and list it on my CV “graduate school here I come” I thought. Just doing an internship was good enough; I was not too worried about the content. I had two questions: “how can I stay out of trouble” and “what’s for lunch”. The answer to both questions came as a surprise.

On my first day I arrived at 7:30 and by 9:30 my attitude had totally changed. I had been given a meal card and a desk, and I had been introduced to my colleges. The meal card and the desk were impressive. I received my email address and network designation as unexpected honors. The meal card was nice too. I ate breakfast at 5:30 that morning and by 8:00 I had already started thinking about food. None of that did as much to change my attitude however, as the people I met in my office. Hence forth I would proudly call them colleges.

Horizon-china.com mentions that all Horizon employees have advanced degrees including a large number of PhDs. What it does not mention is how this firm has managed to recruit exclusively, friendly, humble, yet brilliant people, most of who are attractive women. Here I venture into the realm of true facts about Horizon that Americans will not believe. Far from the hierarchy I had expected I found it hard to tell boss from worker as I walked down the hallways of the office. I felt I had entered an atmosphere where I would have to do my absolute best just to keep up. I thought, “I’d never be this lucky in America, since Google does not take 19 year old interns”. Realizing that I could learn volumes of useful information and numerous useful skills from anyone in the office, I resolved to use every minute to learn as much as I could.

In America every firm has a mission statement, sometimes even a vision statement， which supposedly sums up the purpose of the company to allow every employee to work together for a common goal. We say that the worse the management at a firm is, the longer the mission statement. At Horizon the management is so good that it transcends a verbal mission statement, in its place I found that every employee had a deep love and commitment to the well being of the company; a commitment which I now share, but one which my western mind found hard to understand.

For over a month I watched in awe as the entire staff displayed its devotion. Team members accepted their work and did it well, tirelessly. No office in America has such high moral, no office in Europe works so hard. In vain I sought explanations ranging from fear,