My summer intern in Shanghai

[hanster]

El D suggests I start a thread on this, and no, I'm not in China yet. I am flying to Shanghai on the 28th this month and will be starting an internship at a family friend's VC company on July 2nd for the summer. The reason why I'm starting this thread before I even got there is because I stated that I didn't know much about the VC operation nor the business world in China. To quote ED, "Getting involved in VC in China is a really incredible opportunity for you, Chinese private equity is one of the hottest areas in finance right now."

Now I know there are some people around that have experience either in VC or with VC (First type would be Scorpion Man. Second type would be ED. There was also an awesome story by JBird in TC's success thread about dealing with VC.) So I am curious to learn more about the basics and the operation of such. The fact that I know so little about the industry shows how much of a luckbox I am having this opportunity [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]. But people also said I was a luckbox when I got into a fairly good school while sleeping in class throughout HS. So while people can tell me I'm a luckbox I am prepared to maximize my opportunity so I assume seeking help here would be great.

I don't know much about the company yet but my boss is a close family friend that I've known since I was little. I haven't seen him in almost 10 years but I met his wife last summer and she told me to call her daughter when I came to LA because she's leading a branch of Citibank in Barrington and she'll "hook it up". But that didn't go through. So around March I started looking for internships abroad and I had many "leads" from my dad so I applied to a total of four funds (My first choice was a company that was in negotiation to buy a very popular eatery/dessert place in China for $200 mil and somehow my dad was the person that connected the two sides. But the deal fell through and so was my first choice) but I ended up getting this one. From what I've read, most VCs are generally small in terms of size and I know this company is no different. I was told that I will be used primarily for researching and translating but I've also requested to be a part of a project in the second half of the duration.

I thank you in advance EDF for helping me out [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Sidenote: I will be posting trip reports here once in a while. I've been to Shanghai many times (probably 7 times and 2 months at least each duration. I visit every summer when I was in Taiwan and every two summers when I'm in the States) and I would be glad to share the Eastern culture (besides Thailand) to EDF. I will also be taking a trip to Macau (hopefully) and Hong Kong for two weekends so suggestions for those would be dandy. Also if imitation somehow stumbles upon this thread maybe we can combine it into "Ask us two about living in China"