I refer to the letter No set rule for ethnic markers .

The Chinese of yesteryears had minute microscopic ethnic markers, whether you are a Lim, Lee or Tan or Goh for that matter.

To complicate these markers, you have Teo Chews and Hokkiens and Cantonese and so on and so forth. Then you have the Foo Chows amongst the Hokkiens and then the Hin Huas, Eng Choons and so forth.

Pitched fights between these groups were not uncommon and you throw in gangs like 18, 36 and the famous Hai San ... boy, I wonder how they lived in the past. When you subdivide the Teo Chews, one could either be a Lim or a Tan and then further could be either 18 Gang or 36 Gang member. Then his brother-in-law could be Hakka, either a Lim or a Goh and you see the structure of that feudal system itself.

Overtime, the Chinese saw that fighting with one's brother-in-law to protect someone else's commercial and monetary interest was stupid and only for the ignoramus. They realised that they were being exploited wholesale under the guise of clan, honor and dignity.

Today the Chinese are largely homogenous, no longer divided along the fault lines of old. They have learned to be interdependent and support each other. Testament to these are clan scholarships that are open to all and sponsorship of private schools by businessman, irregardless of affinity.

Today, ethnic markers in modern Malaysia are over the same words - honor, dignity and clanship, under the guise of 'bangsa', 'bahasa', and 'Tuhan'. If the Chinese have grown up, why can't Malaysia? Why do we still allow ourselves to be manipulated by the dangling of a few stupid contracts and 'peruntukans'?