Matt Schlenker

By Elise Rolandson

While in Beijing, in the pouring rain, Matt Schlenker took cover in a crowded restaurant.  He was seated with an elderly woman who was also alone.  When Schlenker asked how her food was, in Chinese, her face lit up, and she proceeded to tell him about how she had lived through the Communist and Cultural Revolutions. This was one of his most memorable experiences in China.

Well versed in writing, reading and speaking Mandarin Chinese, Schlenker received an undergraduate Fulbright award to study abroad at the famous Peking University in Beijing.  This prestigious honor is rarely awarded to undergraduate students. The award is usually reserved for faculty and Ph.D. students to pursue research. For this particular trip, it was awarded to Schlenker for the pursuit of language studies.

Schlenker became interested in China after he spoke with the CEO of an import/export company that does business in China.  He suggested Schlenker try a course in Chinese language to see if he liked it.  He took the advice and fell in love with it.

Two years after his first Chinese course, he has studied abroad in Beijing, traveled there on a trip through the UND College of Business and Public Administration in May 2007, and returned the summer of 2008 as an intern for the U.S. consulate general for foreign commercial service in Shanghai.

During his 2007 summer trip with the business school he was able to meet with the import/export company CEO, who happened to be in Shanghai. He spent two weeks traveling the Chinese countryside touring factories that produced textiles and coordinated shipments to the United States.

The following summer he returned as an intern for the consulate general in Shanghai, after declining a fully funded U.S. Department of State Critical Languages scholarship to study abroad in Harbin, China.  The consulate general assists American companies that want to sell their products in China. 

During the internship, he spent his weekends and vacations working for the import/export company.  He traveled the countryside inspecting factories and visiting with employees.  

“It was exciting to have the chance to go where not many others have had the opportunity to go,” says Schlenker.  He was given the opportunity to dine with factory owners and attend banquets with Chinese officials.  He describes it as a “surreal experience, but just the beginning.”

Schlenker considers learning Chinese a “goal with no end, one in which there is always something to work toward.”

He eventually wants to have a business career in China. He cannot see himself anywhere else. “Uncertainty makes me work that much harder,” says Schlenker.