Agnes Wang Xu
Intern Student, Chengdu China Served MAKNA from 13th March to 09th April 2008
Dear MAKNA,
First of all, I would like to express my appreciation to the internship MAKNA has provided me with. It is one of the more distinguished experiences in my life! I am the only child in my family and as such feel that I am not independent enough. This is my first time abroad and I view it as a challenge. Thank you to all those who have helped me during this period.
Kuala Lumpur looks like a famous Chinese city, Guangzhou (in the southern part of China). There are many similarities which include the hot climate, skyscrapers, local people, predominantly Cantonese, the traffic jams and intense working pressure. I really love it. It is such a different life here. However, I encountered quite a bit of trouble when I first got here. But there were a lot of kind people who did me many favours.
MAKNA is a company with much meaning, it helps thousands of cancer patients every year. During the first weekend, I received special training from HUKM. A wise nurse, Margaret taught me a lot about the procedures when visiting cancer patients. I admire her work and her shining personality. She shared her motto with me : When we are young we learn, when we are old we teach. That really drove the point home. To be honest, I see MAKNA as a stage for a group of ordinary people to perform extraordinary things.
My job here mainly covered document and company website translations from English to Chinese, which was also my major at university in China. Therefore I can proudly say that I was quite efficient and I loved my work. Having tea breaks at MAKNA made me happy and relaxed as it was a chance to know Malaysian culture and customs. The documents I translated gave me deep insight into cancer and its sufferers. A healthy lifestyle certainly does good to a person’s life. I also learn a lot from the personal nutrition consultant. But the most important thing is the strong spirit of the cancer patients. These are brave souls who strive to beat their disease and it is MAKNA who brings meaning into their lives again. MAKNA, you rock!.
I also had the opportunity to take part in a 4 day jungle survival training course, which will be one of the most memorable experiences in my life. We lived in camps, used wood and other rough tools to cook, we did jungle trekking and marching exercises. It was hard for me, but I managed to persevere. During the prize presentation, the president of MAKNA finally told us the real aim of this training, to experience first hand how poor people in Malaysia live, to know them and understand them, with the hope in motivating us to mobilise every source to help them. Thank you MAKNA for this precious chance to let me see the world differently.
China is a country with a large population and a lot of people face the risk of cancer. I believe a large number of people in China would be happy to contribute to help to prevent cancer. We would dearly welcome MAKNA to China. I hope my translation work here will help MAKNA to enter the China market to help cancer patients.
