The fifth session of C-Quotient Campus series was held at Republic Polytechnic on 27 Oct 2010. Business China invited two guest speakers to share with the students about their journey of discovering China.
The first speaker was Ms Tan Siok Siok. She is a producer and the founder of Niurenku.com, an online video network at China youths. It showcases the latest action sports, music, indie & pop culture happenings in China. Ms Tan is also the executive producer of Boomtown Beijing, a docu-film that shows the city of Beijing, its people and their dreams during the summer before the Olympics. The film was shown at the 21st Singapore International Film Festival.
Since young, Ms Tan had been fascinated by the culture of China and had always wanted to work in China. When she was working as a film maker at Discovery Channel, she travelled to China frequently and that fuelled her passion to know more about the country. Hence in 2007, she decided to immerse herself in China, a place full of opportunities.
“To me, the best journey and the best adventure is to learn about yourself.” Ms Tan said that the biggest discovery about herself is to realise that she could be an entrepreneur. It was something that she had always been reluctant to become, as she saw herself as a creative person, rather than a business person. Till now, she remained surprised by the fact that she became an entrepreneur.
She shared with the students about China’s culture. She said that it is a country full of uncertainties that makes life interesting. It could be a culture shock for anyone new to China. For instance, China has a culture of ambiguity and the people do not subscribe to a fixed set of rules. This is in contrast to Singapore, where people live by rules and regulation. She quoted an interesting example using the way agreed/approved is written in Chinese. There are two different meanings that can be derived from the full stop at the end of the phrase “同意” or “agreed”. If the full stop was written in a shaded circle “同意.”, it meant that one must agree to finish or fulfill all the terms and conditions in an agreement. Whereas ifthe full stop was a un-shaded circle, “同意。”, it meant that one need not fulfill the terms and conditions stated in the agreement.
She concluded by saying: “In China, anything is possible” and to “learn to love the uncertainty, which is China, for that is life and that is your life’s adventure”.
The second speaker, Mr Wong Yuen Lik is the founder of X-Trekkers Adventure Consultant. A travel enthusiast, he founded the company on the basis of combining adventure travel and community service. Since 2002, X-Trekkers has organised several such trips to Shangri-la, China, allowing others to discover a different side of China and at the same time help to improve the lives of the locals.
His first trip to China was about 15 years ago when he went to rural areas such as Tibet and Xinjiang. From there, he realised the hugeness of these regions, and that it was a stark contrast from the modernised cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. The people were poor and had little to eat, especially during winter. Come summer, they would chop the trees to sell the logs in order to earn some money. The income levels of these farmers could not match those who were living in the cities and had to rely on government subsidy.
Despite conditions, Mr Wong saw a golden opportunity. With the aim to enrich the lives of the people and to save trees from being chopped, he teamed up with a local Tibetan to teach the people how to develop the area into a tourist destination. He taught them how to be travel guides, how to think like a tourist and to prepare food that would suit the tastes of tourists. With that, the people were able to sustain a stable income. In addition, his company has also built an education centre for the people and helped developed a waste management system.
Mr Wong advised the students that to look to China, not just in terms of monetary opportunities, but also at its opportunities to enrich one’s life.
To sum it up, by discovering China, both speakers discovered opportunities to fulfill their passion. In the course of their journey, they have also enriched the lives of others by sharing the China experience through their work. For Ms Tan, it was via her video network and films, and for Mr Wong, the unique tours organised by his company.
- C-Quotient Campus Series Session 4: New Breed of Young Foreign Entrepreneurs in China
- C-Quotient Campus Series Session 6: Green China