<TABLE id=msgUN cellSpacing=3 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD id=msgUNsubj vAlign=top>Coffeeshop Chit Chat - New PRC immigrants now form majority FT</TD><TD id=msgunetc noWrap align=right>
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</NOBR> </TD><TD class=msgDate noWrap align=right width="30%">Nov-21 10:21 pm </TD></TR><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgT noWrap align=right width="1%" height=20>To: </TD><TD class=msgTname noWrap width="68%">ALL <NOBR></NOBR></TD><TD class=msgNum noWrap align=right> (1 of 8) </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgleft width="1%" rowSpan=4> </TD><TD class=wintiny noWrap align=right>2849.1 </TD></TR><TR><TD height=8></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgtxt><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class="padlrt8 blue verdana10" vAlign=center>Nov 22, 2008</TD><TD class="padlrt8 blue verdana10" vAlign=center align=right>
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=padlrt8 colSpan=2><!-- headline one : start -->Young Dragons: Many are well-educated, speak competent English
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</TD></TR><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 bold" colSpan=2>New immigrants from China, better known as xin yi min in Chinese, now form the majority of foreigners in our midst. Not only are they increasing in number, but they are also getting younger. And many are breaking into new fields such as law, and food and retail industries.
</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- Author --></TD></TR><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Leong Weng Kam, Senior Writer </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
IN JANUARY last year, he proposed to his girlfriend. A month later, they headed to the Registry of Marriages to say 'I do'. In June this year, they pooled their savings together and bought a resale three-room Housing Board flat in Serangoon Avenue 2 for $256,000. A month later, they moved in. They are both 26, in love and raring to start a family. In sum, they are like most Singaporean newly-weds.
Except that Mr Lu Yifei is a budding artist from Jinan in Shandong province, China, and his wife Kong Wei, also an artist, hails from Beijing.
Mr Lu arrived here in 2001 to study graphic design at LaSalle College of the Arts, graduating with a diploma in 2004. He then earned a degree through distance learning with the Open University in the United Kingdom.
Since then, he has been working as an artist with SooBin Gallery. He is now staging his first solo exhibition of modern oil paintings, priced up to $4,000 each, at Utterly Art Gallery in Chinatown.
While visiting friends in Beijing four years ago, he met and fell in love with Kong Wei, a fine arts graduate from Beijing's Capital Normal University. After two years of long-distance romancing, she joined him here and now works as a gallery assistant at private museum Art Retreat in Ubi Techpark.
The couple, who have a combined monthly income of $4,000, believe they have a better future here. 'We like the greenery and living environment. It is nice, a small and quiet place to be in,' he says.
<!-- show media links starting at 7th para -->They are part of a growing population of Chinese immigrants in Singapore.
Fuzhou-born Ivan Wu Yu, 27, who has been working for beauty product chain Beaute Spring as a senior IT executive for the past two years, is also hoping to start a family here.
The IT graduate from Yang En University in Fujian province rents a room in an HDB flat near his workplace in Bukit Batok for $500 a month.
But every night, he is on the phone, trying to convince his 24-year-old girlfriend Xueyun, a school teacher from Fuzhou, to join him here and buy a place together.
He is going home for Chinese New Year in two months and hopes to return a married man, with bride in tow.
Breaking new ground
MR LU and Mr Wu are the new face of China immigrants, or xin yi min, as they are known in Chinese.
They are in their 20s or 30s, super- driven, upwardly mobile, speak competent English, and are beginning to break into new fields such as law, banking, public relations and retail.
Many have tertiary education, having studied here, in China or the West, and can switch easily from Mandarin to English and vice-versa.
The more enterprising have started a slew of businesses, from financial consulting services and food court stalls to public relations firms.
No official figures of their numbers are available. But according to estimates by the Tian Fu Club, a clan association formed by the new Chinese immigrants here, which has about 2,000 members, between 300,000 and 400,000 have become PRs and citizens. Half of them are estimated to be in their 20s and 30s or even younger.
This does not include a growing group of young contract workers from China, mainly in the manufacturing, construction and shipbuilding industries.
Recently, semi-skilled workers from China on work permits have also been allowed to work in the services sectors. As a result, thousands more have streamed in from China to work in shopping malls, restaurants and food courts, some as young as 18.
They quickly find shift work as 24-hour convenience store cashiers, salesgirls, petrol pump attendants, bus drivers and postal workers, all jobs not too popular among Singaporeans.
Miss Ichigo Teng Chong, 28, is from Dalian, Liaoning province. She paid about 40,000 yuan (S$9,000) to agents in China to find her a job here.
'I came to learn and see Singapore, a place I have heard so much about since young,' she says.
Over the past year, she has been a cosmetics salesgirl at Bugis Village, earning a basic monthly salary of $700. With commissions and over-time pay, she takes home about $1,500 a month, seven times more than her pay back home. 'I hope to save enough to open a cosmetics shop in Dalian when I return home next year,' says Miss Teng, who works at least 10 hours a day, six days a week.
[email protected]
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- headline one : end -->
</TD></TR><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 bold" colSpan=2>New immigrants from China, better known as xin yi min in Chinese, now form the majority of foreigners in our midst. Not only are they increasing in number, but they are also getting younger. And many are breaking into new fields such as law, and food and retail industries.
</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- Author --></TD></TR><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Leong Weng Kam, Senior Writer </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
IN JANUARY last year, he proposed to his girlfriend. A month later, they headed to the Registry of Marriages to say 'I do'. In June this year, they pooled their savings together and bought a resale three-room Housing Board flat in Serangoon Avenue 2 for $256,000. A month later, they moved in. They are both 26, in love and raring to start a family. In sum, they are like most Singaporean newly-weds.
Except that Mr Lu Yifei is a budding artist from Jinan in Shandong province, China, and his wife Kong Wei, also an artist, hails from Beijing.
Mr Lu arrived here in 2001 to study graphic design at LaSalle College of the Arts, graduating with a diploma in 2004. He then earned a degree through distance learning with the Open University in the United Kingdom.
Since then, he has been working as an artist with SooBin Gallery. He is now staging his first solo exhibition of modern oil paintings, priced up to $4,000 each, at Utterly Art Gallery in Chinatown.
While visiting friends in Beijing four years ago, he met and fell in love with Kong Wei, a fine arts graduate from Beijing's Capital Normal University. After two years of long-distance romancing, she joined him here and now works as a gallery assistant at private museum Art Retreat in Ubi Techpark.
The couple, who have a combined monthly income of $4,000, believe they have a better future here. 'We like the greenery and living environment. It is nice, a small and quiet place to be in,' he says.
<!-- show media links starting at 7th para -->They are part of a growing population of Chinese immigrants in Singapore.
Fuzhou-born Ivan Wu Yu, 27, who has been working for beauty product chain Beaute Spring as a senior IT executive for the past two years, is also hoping to start a family here.
The IT graduate from Yang En University in Fujian province rents a room in an HDB flat near his workplace in Bukit Batok for $500 a month.
But every night, he is on the phone, trying to convince his 24-year-old girlfriend Xueyun, a school teacher from Fuzhou, to join him here and buy a place together.
He is going home for Chinese New Year in two months and hopes to return a married man, with bride in tow.
Breaking new ground
MR LU and Mr Wu are the new face of China immigrants, or xin yi min, as they are known in Chinese.
They are in their 20s or 30s, super- driven, upwardly mobile, speak competent English, and are beginning to break into new fields such as law, banking, public relations and retail.
Many have tertiary education, having studied here, in China or the West, and can switch easily from Mandarin to English and vice-versa.
The more enterprising have started a slew of businesses, from financial consulting services and food court stalls to public relations firms.
No official figures of their numbers are available. But according to estimates by the Tian Fu Club, a clan association formed by the new Chinese immigrants here, which has about 2,000 members, between 300,000 and 400,000 have become PRs and citizens. Half of them are estimated to be in their 20s and 30s or even younger.
This does not include a growing group of young contract workers from China, mainly in the manufacturing, construction and shipbuilding industries.
Recently, semi-skilled workers from China on work permits have also been allowed to work in the services sectors. As a result, thousands more have streamed in from China to work in shopping malls, restaurants and food courts, some as young as 18.
They quickly find shift work as 24-hour convenience store cashiers, salesgirls, petrol pump attendants, bus drivers and postal workers, all jobs not too popular among Singaporeans.
Miss Ichigo Teng Chong, 28, is from Dalian, Liaoning province. She paid about 40,000 yuan (S$9,000) to agents in China to find her a job here.
'I came to learn and see Singapore, a place I have heard so much about since young,' she says.
Over the past year, she has been a cosmetics salesgirl at Bugis Village, earning a basic monthly salary of $700. With commissions and over-time pay, she takes home about $1,500 a month, seven times more than her pay back home. 'I hope to save enough to open a cosmetics shop in Dalian when I return home next year,' says Miss Teng, who works at least 10 hours a day, six days a week.
[email protected]
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