internship early stages, 实习很早的时候

From the moment I joined the Moore School of Business, I knew that I will be spending 1 year and a half in a country where I never though I ever live, China.
I spent already one year of my life in China and must say that I can now officially add Chinese to my spoken languages. I can pretty much explain what I want to say, but I am always using a pretty simple way of expressing what I mean. I am not able to read nor write well anymore, so the only things I still have are my speaking and especially my listening.
The other part of my Chinese experience, the 6 months, I was scheduled to spend them doing my internship in China. From the beginning, I knew that a Chinese company might be too much for me, as I would not be able to handle it, because of the complicated language barrier. Also, there is always the risk that one would work there and get to be used just because of the English speaking abilities.
My internship search started late October last year. Being in a new big city, apparently is hard to make good contacts but, by attending a lot of social events, you really get started in meeting a lot of well connected people. If only time would allow to do this every time, one could become a very good People Connector. I tried using my personal contacts, people and friends who I had in Beijing. In the same time, I attended different meetings aimed at helping expats to find a job in this large crazy city. Another very useful channel was AbroadChina, the company that always helped us to have an easier life here in Beijing. Last, but not least, our University has good contacts in Asia, particularly active in Shanghai and Beijing.
Because I really wanted to stay in Beijing, I considered the location more important than the actual function or company itself. Why? Simple, my life is here now, Mandarin is widely spoken and friends are also here.
I think it turned out that I made the right decisions at the time, but I guess waiting some more time will ultimately tell me if I took the right decision. More to come...