Patrick Luig has to spell out the word: Z-h-o-n-g-s-h-a-n. "It's actually really easy," he says then, with only a touch of irony. Really easy? The mechanical engineering student from Bochum has no trouble pronouncing the name of the southern Chinese city, located in the Guangdong province near Hong Kong and Macao, because he spent 10 weeks there. That helps when it comes to gaining a sense of orientation and spelling Chinese words. But such benefits weren't the main reason that the German student swapped the lecture hall for a Chinese shop floor. The factory wasn't actually all that Chinese. Rather, it is actually Chinese-German, because it, or at least its monetary value, can be found on the balance sheet of a Duesseldorf company. And that's why Luig went to China and the city with the name that is supposed to be so easy to spell. Luig had received a scholarship of 500 euros per semester as a reward for having the best first diploma - and he later secured another benefit with the help of ThyssenKrupp: The stay in China, in Zhongshan, at ThyssenKrupp Elevator, a ThyssenKrupp subsidiary with which Luig's university in Bochum set up a cooperation agreement two years ago.
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