Zhou Yunkai, who goes by Shu in Japan, is a third-year student at Keio University studying economics. He is on a one-year exchange from his home university of Beijing Foreign Studies University and is taking this semester to work full-time at Meros.  Shu wastes no time and has been accompanying our team to meetings at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), supporting research on seafood exports to China and starting to dig into China’s food security policy.

Shu discussed why he was drawn to Meros. “ I majored in Japanese at my university in China and was very interested in agriculture. I was trying to find an opportunity that would be a crossroads between these interests. So fortunately I found Meros. To be honest, I love Meros as a team with its diversity of different backgrounds, individuality, and global experience. In this way, Meros can solve challenges by providing insights from different perspectives and can be more open and cohesive.”

In the next few months he will be taking a deeper dive into the most recent developments in China’s food security as part of his independent research project. He has already proven himself to be an enthusiastic and quick learner with an incredibly proactive attitude.

“Working as a research assistant, I want to help the team as much as I can. And at the same time, it is a great experience for me to learn Meros’ methodology for solving challenges. I expect the first weeks will probably be hard, especially the process of learning technical terms in foreign languages. But I believe that with the effort and help from team members, I can accommodate myself to Meros quickly, and have a better understanding of the consulting business and agriculture trends.”

Shu has big plans outside of work this season too. “As a big fan of Japanese food, I was so excited to find there are numerous great restaurants near Meros. So apart from work, my first goal is to experience all of these great restaurants, especially ramen! I also plan to travel to Kyoto to enjoy the scenery – and of course experience Kyoto’s famous Ramen Street while I am there.“