WHEN Francesco Brandolin walked into Shenzhen through the Luohu Checkpoint one month ago, he was all alone and did not know a single word of the Chinese language.

Now the 21-year-old international economics student from Bocconi University in Milan has settled into Shenzhen quite comfortably. He exchanges name cards with locals, attends parties and Chinese training classes, eats Chinese food, and lives in an area where there are few foreigners.

"It really takes a while to get used to this city, because everything is moving so fast. But after a while all are fine," said Brandolin, one of the four students from the university doing three-month internships in Shenzhen.

Brandolin believes he is the most fortunate of the four, because he works with the China-Italy Chamber of Commerce in Shenzhen, where he gets a lot of opportunities to meet people.

The early days in Shenzhen were difficult, Brandolin recalled. Arriving in Shenzhen on a Saturday night, he survived on a credit card the next day, as the banks were not open and he could not change currency.

He spent a whole week trying to rent a flat, because few landlords were willing to sign a three-month contract. The process was even more difficult because he did not speak Chinese and few real estate agencies or landlords spoke English.

After signing his name on a contract printed in Chinese. He even did not understand a single word of the contract.

Despite the difficult start, Brandolin soon found life in Shenzhen to be quite interesting. "It is dynamic, and full of new things," said Brandolin.

At night and on weekends, he goes to Chinese language training classes, where he meets friends from different countries. He attends parties organized by the chamber of commerce and his friends, who also take him to different restaurants. He saw cooked chicken feet for the first time in his life and thought it was a vegetable. He also saw live animals, including snakes, in Shenzhen restaurants.

Brandolin is quite proud of his business card. In his home country, not many people have business cards, and people only use business cards when it is very necessary, he said.

Editor: Wing