Mr Manners grooms white collars for global success(2)

"It was a really rough time - my father passed away when I was doing national service in Singapore," Ng recalls. "Life was very easy, but then suddenly everything changed, our family was thrown completely off balance."

Ng says the experience made him grow up quickly and taught him to be determined and self-reliant.

Despite leaving Shanghai with his dreams in ruins, the business opportunities he had seen here convinced Ng to give the city another shot, and in 2008 he moved back to open DeloMakler.

The company held its first seminars on Monday and Tuesday. DeloMakler has also partnered with Singapore's state broadcaster, Mediacorp, to deliver the business etiquette section of a media and public relations training course in China.

For information on DeloMakler or its courses, call 6103-1790 or visit www.delomakler.com. Ng King Ten

Nationality: Singaporean

Age: Physically 28, mentally 48

Profession: Managing director of DeloMakler soft skills training lab

Q&A

Self-description:Driven, passionate, down-to-earth.

Favorite place: Alfresco coffee by the Huangpu River at the Riverside Avenue Starbucks (Pudong side of the Bund).

Strangest sight: During a business meeting with Chinese counterparts, everyone was literally throwing cigarettes across the table as a gesture of diplomacy and friendship. There was a guy who jumped and literally caught a cigarette in mid-air with his mouth and lit it with his Zippo lighter. The sequence was completed within a split second!

Worse experience:An employee mass-resignation within the first week of buying a Chinese food and beverage company in 2005. It took us nearly 10 months to re-employ, re-train and revamp our restaurant workforce.

Motto for life:A thousand-mile journey starts from the first step.

Improve Shanghai:

High-caliber workshops to propel the overall standards of business etiquette and professional image of the local workforce. When this is achieved, China will truly be the whole package - a world powerhouse.

Advice to newcomers:Shanghai may be regarded as the Wild Wild East, and many foreigners may find it extremely difficult to adjust to life here. But if you embrace the good (and bad) of Shanghai with open arms, you will most definitely fall in love with it.

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