China beer ladies
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Hi,
Interesting.. after the hoo-hah on the china beer ladies, the local papers published a story about a RJC "scholar" working as a waitress....
I think we should not CONFUSE the issue. For talents such as below, Singapore should welcome them.... if they decide to stay on and contribute after their studies, it will be helpful to the country.
However, why should we encourage/allow companies to bring in china ladies to sell beer in Singapore! Who is the idiot will approve their work visa... if there is a loophole in the system, we should address it. But it looks like the govt does not think of this as a problem!
http://www.asiaone.com/News/Education/Story/A1Story20080508-64116.html
China girls: Future job threat or asset? 
FOR four months, she became the face of the younger version of the China-born beer auntie mentioned by Minister Lim Boon Heng.
She would work from sundown to the wee hours of the morning, serving drinkers and drunkards, and cleaning up puke.
But there is one major difference: Unlike the China coffee shop beer lady story which sparked a debate over whether she is unfairly competing with Singaporean beer aunties for the same job, Yvonne Gao Yuan comes with impressive credentials.
The pretty 19-year-old is a straight-A student from Raffles Junior College, has scholarship offers galore, and has snagged a place to study at one of the top universities in the world.
Could she be the face of the competition faced by young Singaporeans in the future?
Or should her story be better seen as a wake-up call for young Singaporeans.
Miss Gao, from Shenyang, China, will head to Oxford University to study physics in September, most likely on an A*Star scholarship.
For a person whose favourite subject is physics, a subject grounded in logic, waitressing may seem to be the most illogical of holiday jobs.
While her junior college peers aimed for coveted internships after their A-level exams, she applied to be a server at jazz bar Bellini Room at St James Power Station.
So why not be an intern in a field related to physics, or in research?
Miss Gao said that she wants to be an 'all-rounder'; and a nightlife job would help give her new perspectives about life.
'It's different from my time in RJC,' she said eloquently, and with perfect diction, 'where everyone pretty much had the same background.'
In school, she always got 'encouragement and compliments'. Everyone was always 'nice and formal'.
She wanted to see what it is like as a waitress - a plankton in a rowdy nightclub.
'It was the first time in my life (that) I felt inadequate,' said Miss Gao.
'There was so much to learn. How to serve, how to talk to people, how to placate angry customers.'
DIDN'T WANT TO STAGNATE
Hardly the type of job for your precious, studious daughter alone in Singapore?
Not so for Miss Gao, the only child of parents who earn an estimated monthly income of $10,000 in China.
Six years ago, she arrived from China with her mother, who quit her job as a lawyer to oversee her daughter's pursuit of a better education.
It was not a smooth start. Miss Gao changed schools twice in two years 'because the competition was not there and I did not want to stagnate', she said.
Having achieved the best possible results of six A1s for her O-levels, Miss Gao enrolled in RJC, ending the tiring process of finding a competitive school environment.
In RJC, she was not all about textbooks. She played saxophone in the school band and was a member of the school's debating team.
When Miss Gao finished her A-levels, her mother returned to her job in China, leaving the teenager to support herself in Singapore.
She juggles giving tuition, teaching swimming and working at an events management company to pay her $350 rent every month.
'It was a decision on my part to be financially independent,' said Miss Gao.
Did her fellow Singapore servers at Bellini resent this foreign-born talent?
One indication is the cheeky tank top Ms Gao wore to the interview with The New Paper.
It carried the words 'The Bellini team are like bras. They are close to your heart and they give support'.
The tank top was a farewell gift to her by the Bellini Room team on her last day of work.
The girls in the service team cried in a huddle that day.
The captain of the service team, Ms Nadine Michele-Alaynna Frances, 37, said: 'Yvonne is a very hard-working and humble worker. I was surprised when I found out more about her background.'
Added Miss Gao: 'When I applied to be a server for the Bellini Room, my interviewer asked me what I was doing here.'
Customers were similarly taken aback when they discovered that she was more than a pretty face.
'But it was fun,' said Miss Gao. 'I got to meet people when they let their guard down and when they talked freely.
'Working in Bellini Room taught me as much as working in a lab.
'In the future, the skills I picked up (as a waitress) may not contribute directly to my research, but they will contribute to my life in general.'
This article was first published in The New Paper on May 7, 2008.
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Most of the people who reply are ppl with no life and jealous.
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whether one sees it as threat or competition is up to the person
Threats make you unhappy, while competition makes you motivated. That's the difference between people.
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19 ? correct age for normal "A" level? or completed "A" level?
student pass can work? what ministry of manpower doing?what NTUC doing?
who should be the "policeman" for correct work passes?
ICA should cancelled her student pass!
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it depends... if you are saying competitions... what SG aunties has to offer against young beer ladies from china? to them it would be a threat...