On 27 February, some 80 students from Ngee Ann Polytechnic (NP) attended the E3 workshop – a preparatory workshop for the Overseas Immersion Programmes – organised by Business China
Conceptualised with three fundamentals in mind – Excite, Explore and Experience – the E3 workshop aims to excite and better prepare the students before they embark on immersion trips to China, ensuring them a fruitful learning journey.
The speaker for the workshop was Mr Koh Chin Yee, Director, Asia Directorate (China) of National University of Singapore (NUS). Having worked in China for close to ten years, Mr Koh kick started the workshop with some general facts about the country with 1.3 billion people – 270 times more than that in Singapore. He then shared some of his personal encounters and various social phenomena in modern China.
During the one-hour morning talk, Mr Koh not only imparted insightful knowledge on the cultural differences between Singapore and China, he also led the students through the political history of the emerging China.
Among the three groups of students who attended the workshop, some were from the Building & Environment Division (BE) and Electrical Engineering Division (EE) of the School of Engineering. They would be going to the Wuhan Polytechnic in Hubei province and University of Electronic Science & Technology of China in Sichuan province, respectively. The third group was from the School of Business & Accountancy, who would be going for the International Business Study Mission (IBSM) in March.
One of the BE students, Hu Jianing, said that the topics covered by Mr Koh, such as the efficiency problem and gift-giving culture of China, helped her gain better knowledge on the complexity of China’s evolution. Originated from Shenyang, Liaoning province, Jianing has been in Singapore for nine years and she looks forward to the five-week immersion programme to Wuhan Polytechnic.
Chng Wee Leong and Ghee Jian Hui who would be attending the 12-days IBSM, were both not new to immersion trips. Having attended courses at Shanghai University before, the second-year students would be going to Zhengzhou, Xi’an, Wuhan and Xiamen this time round. “We believe that China has vast potential to tap on,” both of them said.
In Business China’s constant effort to strive towards grooming bilingual and bi-cultural Singaporean youths, the E3 workshop has received positive feedback, on the content which includes social information, real-time experience, history background and latest trend of China.