Business China widens its reach to help young Singaporeans keen to work or study in China

Next month, 120 Nanyang Technological University (NTU) undergraduates will leave for China to work as interns and to study at top universities there.

Few among them know that Rong is the old name for Chengdu, Sichuan province's capital city, where some of them are heading to.

Chengdu was called Rong after a king from the State of Shu, a great lover of furong or the hibiscus, ordered every household there to grow the flower on their walls. This was during the period of the Five Dynasties and 10 Kingdoms in ancient China some 1,100 years ago.

The students, however, had no problems when asked to give the other names of three other major Chinese cities – Jing for Beijing, Hu for Shanghai and Wu for Suzhou – where groups of them will be staying for stints of up to six months.

At last Monday's half-day workshop at NTU organised to prepare them for their trips, they were also given general profiles of the four cities, including special traits of the people there and the different languages or dialects they speak.

Workshop speaker Will Ding, a contemporary China lecturer at the Confucius Institute and the Singapore Institute of Management University, said the Shanghainese, for example, are not only shi mao or fashionable, but also very jing ming or shrewd, while those from Beijing are generally zhi wo or full of themselves, and show an arrogance which they themselves may not be aware of.

The E³ or E cube (excite, explore and experience China) workshop was the latest for tertiary students initiated by Business China, a non-profit organisation and brainchild of Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew set up two years ago by the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry

(SCCCI) to help Singaporeans engage, learn, work or do business with a rising China.

Its 16-member board of directors includes Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong, Minister of State for Trade and Industry and Manpower Lee Yi Shyan, former Keppel Corporation chairman Lim Chee Onn, Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) chief executive officer Alan Chan and NTU president Su Guaning.

Since July last year, 530 undergraduates from NTU and the National University of Singapore (NUS) have been leaving for China for short working and study trips, and have attended similar workshops.

More E³ workshops will be planned next year to include students from the Singapore Management University as well as the polytechnics.

Though Business China's aim is to help anyone who is interested in sharpening his bilingual and bicultural edge to engage China, its chief executive officer Josephine Teo, who is also an MP for Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC, said special attention would be placed on younger Singaporeans or the pre-workforce young adults.

Mrs Teo, who worked as a manager in the China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park between 1996 and 1998, explained: "We perceive this group to be most at risk of losing the Chinese link once they enter the workforce as there is little need for them to use the Chinese language in the workplace these days."

Earlier in July, Business China tied up with SPH and launched a new Web portal (cling.omy.sg) to help raise Chinese language standards among young Singaporeans and expose them to various aspects of modern China through quizzes, e-novels and even songs.

Next year, it will roll out a young leaders' programme supported by International Enterprise Singapore for fresh graduates who will be recruited by Singapore- based firms and then sent for work attachments in these companies' offices in China for between six and 18 months.

"We have already secured 14 placements with seven of our corporate members' companies in this programme and the first batch of new recruits will be leaving to work in China in March next year," said Mrs Teo, who is also assistant secretary-general of the National Trades Union Congress.

Also in the pipeline is the C-Quotient Campus Series in which prominent young speakers with working experience in China, both from Singapore and abroad, will be invited to talk to university and polytechnic students here and to impart to them practical knowledge on contemporary China and the growing relationship between China and the world.

At least one talk has been planned for each of the three public universities and five polytechnics here in the coming year, and speakers lined up include young Singaporean film-maker Tan Siok Siok, who is now working in China, and social entrepreneurs from Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Another project up Mrs Teo's sleeve is to work with universities here and abroad on executive training programmes which include the understanding of Chinese history and culture so that young Singapore executives will become more China-savvy.

"This can be done by including Chinese companies in their case studies or even introducing Chinese calligraphy as part of the programmes," she said.

Business China's chairman Chua Thian Poh, the immediate past SCCCI president and a prominent developer, said the organisation needs at least $2 million a year to run its programmes. The aim is to eventually nurture a group of 30,000 bilingual and bicultural Singaporeans through the extensive use of the Chinese language. This is to sustain Singapore's multicultural heritage and develop a cultural and economic bridge linking China and the world.

Mr Chua said that since Business China was launched in November 2007, significant progress and changes to its scope of activities, as well as the people it wants to reach out to, have been made.

For example, the number of its members – comprising businessmen, professionals and other working adults – jumped fourfold from 337 a year ago to more than 1,200 now. Student members from Special Assistance Plan schools and junior colleges to polytechnic and university undergraduates increased from 547 to more than 2,500 during the same period.

Said Mr Chua: "When the idea was first mooted by MM Lee, we were talking only about a club for members who were bilingual and interested to do business in China so that they could interact and speak Mandarin to one another.

"But after several brainstorming sessions with our directors, we decided that besides catering to individuals who want in-depth knowledge of China in programmes such as our China Rediscovery series of talks, membership should be expanded to companies as well as students who will be our future business leaders in China."

One student, Miss Kassyn Ng, 21, a third-year engineering student at NTU who attended last Monday's E3 workshop before she leaves for her six-month work-and-study stint in Shanghai, said: "I think I know much more about China and Shanghai after the session and I feel more confident to go there now."

Business China is celebrating its second anniversary with a dinner and dialogue with its patron, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, on topics including Singapore-China relations over the past 20 years at the Pyramid Club on Tuesday at 7pm.

Courtesy of The Straits Times, 27 December 2009