My name is JIN, Lei (Ray) and during the amazing summer time of 2008, I worked at the UNDP Beijing Office as an intern for four month. It is really a rewarding and precious experience to me. I would like to express my gratitude to the Peace and Development Foundation Hong Kong, and the Heads of Universities Committee for such generous support. Also, I would like to thank UNDP China Office, the Tumen Secretariat of UNDP China, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong for offering me such a great chance.

I was assigned to work for the Tumen Secretariat (TS) of UNDP China. The TS of Greater Tumen Initiative (GTI) is a joint mechanism of the five member countries: China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Mongolia, the Republic of Korea and the Russian Federation. It provides a multilateral forum for the member countries to identify and implement regional initiatives that encourage economic growth, improve living standards and also contribute to peace and stability in North-East Asia.

I specialized in the area of international cooperation on environmental protection and infrastructure constructions of Greater Tumen Region. Moreover, I assisted the Project Team of TS to compile project briefs, conduct literature research on biological references and provide clerical support.

Since my undergraduate major was Bio-engineering Technology, my background proves to be helpful to the Tumen Secretariat with its environmental projects. There are two projects continuously promoted by GTI. At the 9th meeting of the Consultative Commission held in Vladivostok, Russia in November 2007. One is the Cooperation Framework on Environment (CFE) with the purpose of creating a trans-boundary mechanism in order to synchronize efforts of environmental protection in the Greater Tumen Region (GTR). The latter focuses on the Trans-boundary Environmental Impact Assessment in GTR, especially about Tumen River and Environmental Standardization in Northeast Asia.

I learnt a lot by helping the secretariat in almost all projects. And I aware that as a world wide issue, my research interest, which is food safety, also requires international negotiations, such as standardize safety evaluation procedure, share information and databases, and create trans-boundary food safety criteria. So I paid more attention on how to create more useful solutions and mechanisms based on international cooperation. I believe that this will be extremely helpful to my graduate thesis and my career in the future.

During last four months, I also helped the secretariat in organizing and providing logistic support for several international events. These events covered different topics for improving the economy, investment climate, ecological balance, and infrastructure construction of Northeast Asia.

Meanwhile, I began to realize the importance of how to organize different levels of meetings, what kind of diplomatic usages which need to be treated carefully and how to draft related documents. Indeed, this internship has offered me so many extraordinary experiences. Yet, it is really not an easy time for me as a science student who had never been exposed and involved in such events and issues. I had to pick up lots of different things in a very short time and to get started immediately. Fortunately, the people there guided me and treated me very well. Dr. Nataliya Yecheistova, the Director of TS, who always been strict with me, made me understood that one cannot be too careful while working on diplomatic tasks. Mr. Song Bok Chul, the Programme Advisor of TS, who had taught me all the time to make long term plans by myself, was like a personal life consultant for me.

At the same time, we interns from all around the world had a lot of fun together. It was such a great chance for us to share our experience and culture. I felt really lucky to act like an ambassador of Chinese culture and witness the Beijing Olympic Games lively in a multinational environment.

Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who helped me during this internship and I will continue to seek opportunities for self-improvement.



JIN, Lei (Ray), Master of Philosophy Candidate
Food and Nutritional Science Programme,
Faculty of Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong