IT MAY be some time yet before a new group of bicultural students emerges, but for now, eight graduates from the National University of Singapore (NUS) may help plug that gap.

They are the first local students to graduate in a bilingual international masters programme in business administration which is jointly organised by NUS and Peking University.

The dual degree required them to spend their first year attending classes conducted in both English and Chinese in Peking University, Beijing.

They returned to NUS in their second year, along with 21 students from China.

When Mr Melvin Teo, 31 signed up for programme, he did not think that the cultural differences would be an issue. He soon realised otherwise.

'I thought to myself, I am Chinese and practise most Chinese customs, so how different could I be from those in China?

'But when I got to Beijing, I felt like a fish out of water. I just couldn't understand the local jokes or the way they handled their work,' said Mr Teo, who now works in Shanghai as the director of business development for Salvatore Pasta.

The topic of bicultural Singaporeans received immense attention after Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew spoke at an international conference of Chinese studies scholars at the Nanyang Technological University.

Mr Lee said that bilingual 'gets us through the front door, but it is only through biculturalism that we can reach deep inside Chian and work with them.'

For top graduate Allen Lam, 32, the program has made him more confident of 'reaching deep inside China' and working with China nationals.

Mr Lam, who leaves for his job as an IT consultant in Shenzhen this weekend, had noted the difference in the way Singaporeans and the Chinese think and work.

While Singaporeans tended to divide work up and leave each sub-group to its own devices, the Chinese would discuss and do everything as a group.

Agreeing, his classmate, Mr Foong Kah Keong, 38, recalled his initial frustration with China students when they took what he considered to be an 'inefficient' route over how to solve a business management problem in class.

'As Singaporeans, we are used to certain tried-and- trested routes of problem solving which we felt were efficient,' said Mr Foong, who works in a statutory board and deals with China frequently.

'The Chinese would think things out from different angles and discuss things as a group which we initially thought was a waste of time.'

While the three graduates praised the programme, Associate Professor Goh Yeng Seng, from National Institute of Education's Asian Languages and Culture academic group, wants more done to promote biculturalism.

He told The Straits Times:' While this programme has its merits, a bicultural Singapore requires a programme conducted at a national level and has to go much deeper than this.'