Ask any purely Chinese educated Chinese citizen what his number one political concern is, and he will tell you it's the issue of Chinese education. The Chinese language is the number one anchor of his identity as a Chinese Malaysian.

On the other hand, the Chinese person who insists that the existence of Chinese schools is a hurdle towards national unity in Malaysia and should be scrapped is probably wholly educated in English or Bahasa Malaysia, and has never any experience in the Chinese school system. Professor Khoo Kay Kim, who is now advocating the one school stream proposal, probably belongs to this category.

The six years of my primary education was spent in a Chinese primary school in Kuching, and I am eternally grateful to my late mother who sent me there. Though I was transferred to an English medium school for my secondary education, I was able to learn the Chinese language throughout my life on my own.

Today, I still do my mental mathematical calculation in Mandarin on my shopping trips.