Scholar heads for China

By Serene Luo, The Straits Times, Aug 15, 2009

IN A break from tradition, one of this year's President's Scholars will be going to university in China - the first to do so.

All the previous winners of Singapore's most prestigious scholarship have gone mainly to Ivy League schools in the United States, or to top British universities.
Piqued by her interest in the 'Chinese psyche', Miss Tan Bao Jia, 19, picked Peking University over the Wharton School in the United States.

The former Dunman High School student council president is from the first batch of PSC China scholars, a new category of scholarships introduced this year.

But it was not smooth sailing all the way for her. She admitted with a laugh that at one point she had second thoughts about doing Chinese Language and Literature, as well as China Studies, at the A-level standard.

Miss Tan, who speaks English, Mandarin and Hokkien with her father, a shipping manager, and mother, a housewife, found the first few months tough going.

'It was harder than I thought it would be to love the subject,' she said of Chinese literature. ' But the teachers helped, and I grew to love some of the China writers.'

Among her favourites: major 20th-century writers Lu Xun and Lao She.
The avid trekker, who also enjoys solving Sudoku puzzles, is the eldest of three girls. Her younger sisters are at Tanjong Katong Girls' School and Victoria Junior College.

She will study economics, and believes that Singapore will benefit from having people who understand Chinese culture first-hand and how the country operates.

Being part of Dunman High's pioneer batch of integrated programme graduands, she had a taste of life in China – having spent five months there under the school's bicultural studies programme.

Dunman High principal Sng Chern Wei, a President's Scholar himself, told The Straits Times that the teachers at Peking University and other top Chinese universities were top-grade teachers.

"It is just as exciting and vibrant as in Ivy League or Oxbridge schools," he said.

Mr Sng said Miss Tan, who entered Dunman High as a very shy student, "has really blossomed into a very articulate young lady".

Miss Tan and the five other President's Scholars this year were picked from a pool of 87 PSC scholars.

They were presented their scholarship awards by President S R Nathan at an Istana ceremony yesterday.

Mr Nathan called on the six to not just excel in their studies but to also be active in community work and help the less fortunate. This would help them to understand the concerns of ordinary people when they return to Singapore.