“Sarah Bellemare is a senior at Middlebury College majoring jointly in Chinese and Geography. This past summer, Sarah participated in an internship at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing which was generously funded by Robert and Barbara P. Youngman.”
My internship in Beijing was a wonderful personal experience and provided me with a great opportunity to continue my education in Chinese language and culture. I got to know some great people; I gained valuable experience in the fields of translation and art administration; I had the chance to even further improve my Chinese language skills; and the internship gave me an opportunity to live and work in an authentically Chinese environment, which really helped me gain a deeper understanding of Chinese culture.
Most of the work that I did at the NAMOC was translation, both from Chinese to English and from English to Chinese. I translated everything from academic research, to e-mail correspondence, to formal letters to and from international art organizations. It was such a satisfying feeling to know that all of the hard work that I had put into my Chinese classes at Middlebury was paying off in such a tangible way, by actually physically facilitating international communication and cultural exchange. I also feel that, through my translation work and through my awareness of what went on in the museum around me, I gained a better understanding of the real work that goes into the business of art and public involvement in the arts. It was really interesting to see the differences between American and Chinese perceptions of art and art’s purpose in action. As a result of my work experience during this internship I have decided to seek a career in translation after graduation, possibly in the field of art administration.
This internship also afforded me a great opportunity to get away from expat culture and my “group identity” as a foreigner. I lived in an apartment with a Chinese person in the city’s Xicheng district, and for several weeks I was the only American (and probably the only Westerner) living in the neighborhood. All of my coworkers were also Chinese and I communicated with them almost solely in Chinese, so I felt much more immersed in the Chinese way of life during my internship than I felt during the rest of my study abroad experience when I lived with other American students on a college campus. My favorite parts of the day were the lunch hour when I could chat with my co workers and after work when I could interact with neighbors of all ages and backgrounds and go about my daily life as a regular person in China. In the end, I feel like these personal interactions with regular people have left the deepest impression on me and are what make me miss being in China the most.