After only two years in the United States, China native Nianwei Qiu ’10 headed back to her country last spring, this time guiding the mayor of Minneapolis.

As part of her trade relations internship last semester for the City of Minneapolis and its convention and visitors association Meet Minneapolis, Qiu helped prepare Mayor R. T. Rybak and Meet Minneapolis executive William Deef for a two-week visit to China.

“I was the coordinator for the trip, working mostly with research and logistics,” says Qiu. “The most difficult part was the tight schedules of the mayor and the Chinese political officials. I also ended up doing some interpreting and tour guiding along the way.”

Qiu provided the Minnesota officials with a bit of cultural information as well, she says, although she’s quick to add that the mayor “is very talented at communications,” and that Deef, Meet Minneapolis’s international relations VP, is well schooled in cross-cultural matters.

The trio visited Harbin—Minneapolis’s sister city, Beijing, and Shanghai, which happens to be Qiu’s hometown. There they met with executives at the Chinese offices of Best Buy, Target, Delta Airlines, and other Minnesota-based companies as well as with Chinese businesspeople and government officials. Rybak also gave a speech in Beijing to a Chinese high-tech group.

Qiu had help from the college in finding her internship—first getting encouragement from Asian history professor Yue-him Tam and later getting assistance from internship director Mike Porter in researching the mayor’s office. The result? “I’ve learned how government and business work together and how a mayor can help business leaders find opportunities in foreign markets,” she says.

And the mayor learned a thing or two from Qiu as well. She gave them some advice on how to get Chinese people interested in Minneapolis, a city not known in her native land as a tourist hot spot. “I said a good strategy might be to have them transfer flights here between LA and New York. If they have a good impression, maybe next time they’ll stay longer.”