Living the Dream: Working in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing

By Anna Ansari '11

Fourteen years ago, when I was a 15-year-old student from Michigan studying in Beijing, I used to walk past the U.S. Embassy and wonder who was lucky and accomplished enough to work within the walls of that compound; this summer, I became one of those people. I came to Brooklyn Law School not because I wanted to study law, but because of my decade-plus engagement with and study of China. I wanted to—and still want to—study Chinese law and to practice in China. But when I began law school, I was unsure of how this desire would manifest itself in a legal curriculum and career. Last fall, as a 2L, I enrolled in Prof. Claire Kelly’s course on International Trade Law and loved it. During the spring of 2010, I took International Trade and Customs and, again, became enamored with it. I had found the link between China and law: trade and customs. It was with this knowledge, this final realization of how to bridge these two interests, that I applied for and ultimately accepted an internship at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, working for the U.S. Department of Commerce. Rather than elaborate on how the internship affected me personally and professionally, I choose instead to share with you a glimpse of my daily in my life in Beijing, with the hope that seeing such a glimpse encourages other interested students to take the chance, or the leap, to work abroad during their summer.


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7:30 a.m.: I have pushed snooze on my alarm multiple times, but this time the ayi, the housemaid, knocks on my door and proceeds to walk in to see if I’m awake. I grudgingly get out of bed and head to the bathroom of the three-bedroom house I am staying in—a bathroom that consists of a toilet, a shower nozzle on the wall and a drain on the floor.

8:15 a.m.: After a 10-minute walk, I find myself at the corner of Beijing’s Yongkang Hutong and Andingmennei Daijie. The skies are gray with smog and the air heavy with heat and humidity; it sticks to the silk lining of my suit. I wait at the corner for a cab that will cost me close to nothing for 30 minutes before getting in and directing the driver, in beijinghua, to take me to the U.S. Embassy.

9:00 a.m.: The Embassy guards, provided to the U.S. government by the Chinese government, smile as I flash my yellow security badge, allowing me through the gates of the new embassy complex. As I proceed further, I walk through the metal detectors and set them off, without any indication from the monitoring guards that it matters. It never gets old: walking under that gate, setting off the alarm and simply being allowed to pass on through.

10:00 a.m.: After checking in with my bosses, I sit down to work. My morning work varies. One day is spent looking at Chinese development plans and analyzing potential subsidy issues for Import Administration and another spent organizing a golf trade show to encourage U.S. enterprises to invest in China as part of the National Export Initiative for the Foreign Commercial Service.

1:00 p.m.: My afternoons are as equally varied as my mornings. On some days, I conducted research on subsidies and export initiatives while others were spent at the offices of American law firms, assisting the head of commerce in advising firms on how their clients might best break into the Chinese market. My time was also spent meeting with American legal professionals about the state of the rule of law in China. On one occasion, I represented the Department of Commerce in a meeting with Carolyn Lamm, the head of the American Bar Association, briefing her on the state of U.S. law firms in China and their access to the Chinese market. In another instance, I had the opportunity to speak with the U.S. Ambassador to China about the development of the rule of law in China.

5:30 p.m.: My day ends as I walk out of the embassy, passing the Marines exercising in the lawn. I break into a sweat the moment I step outside the confines of the cool, air-conditioned building into the hot and heavy Beijing summer air. I travel to the corner of Dongfengdong Lu and hail a cab, knowing that not only have I made myself proud by giving my best to my day’s work but also that I have become one of those people I wondered about as a teenager, someone who has been granted the privilege of working for the government of the United States of America in China, even if it is only as an intern. I smile as I get into my taxi, and look forward to the Beijing evening that lies ahead of me.

A version of this article appeared in print in the October 2010 issue of the Bridge.