Sometimes, the Malay language ultras really surprise me.

The reaction to the request for more Chinese schools has elicited an almost racist response from the modern-day Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka defenders.

There are many good reasons to learn Chinese for pride, for cultural heritage, for economic gain, etc. However, there are no good reasons not to learn Chinese. The worst reason not to learn Chinese or go to a Chinese school is because some ultra told you not to.

I personally did not get the benefit of learning how to read Chinese, and I regret that deeply till today. I learnt to read more by necessity during university I was afraid of embarrassing myself at 'karaoke' when singing with friends from Chinese-speaking countries.

Later in life, I would attempt the poetry of the Tang and the Song. My rudimentary understanding of the language frustrated me every step of the way.

I dearly wish for my kids, and for the next generation of Chinese Malaysians, to truly grasp the language, to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their counterparts from Shanghai or Taipei and be equally capable of quoting from the works of Sun Zi, Lin Yutang or a Chinese translation of Victor Hugo .

I do not want them to be illiterates, to speak Mandarin as if they were still tin miners from 1850s Ipoh. I want them to be proud of their heritage and cognisant of the destiny of the Chinese language to be the lingua franca for the Asia-Pacific region.

We don't have to wait for the prime minister to say okay. I have always been a big believer in free markets. If there is tremendous demand for Chinese schools, someone will set up affordable private schools that will give a great education using the Chinese medium.

Maybe some smart entrepreneurs will step forward and set up a few. Maybe it will be fashionable in a few years to send kids off to boarding schools in mainland China. The point is, we are no longer bound by the borders of Perlis and Johor.