Modernity in Malaysia goes back a long way

Thanks to the media, everyone in Malaysia now knows that US State Secretary Condoleezza Rice plays piano. A young friend rang up with I-Found-It or Eureka excitement to tell me 'the news' as if modernity has finally dawned on Malaysia after Rice's media appearance in Kuala Lumpur as a musician.

Rice certainly did what is right in and for the interest of American public diplomacy by displaying the most universal and powerful form of soft power.

But as far as my country and people are concerned, I had heard from my grandmother (left) in 1960s that a qualified Malay electrical chargeman La-Xi-Man-Tin (above) from Tanjung Tualang had known how to play violin long before Dr.Rice was born in 1954. Pak Rashid Maidin learnt English from a Christian missionary in Tapah and Mandarin among fellow tin-mining workers as early as 1930s.

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