Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom.
– Anatole France, French poet, journalist and novelist
Having born after the Japanese Occupation but before the Malayan independence and later Malaysia’s formation, I consider myself blessed.
Firstly, I did not suffer the atrocities of the Japanese forces as my paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother did. Both lost their lives during the Second World War.
My parents were Chinese schoolteachers, but they enrolled me in an English school. For my secondary education, I studied in a missionary school.
Being overly playful and highly undisciplined, I skipped homework and the trial exams in my final school year.
I obtained Grade 3 for the Malaysia Certificate of Education and barely passed English but had no difficulty securing jobs as I could communicate well in English.
At 22, I started working as a tourist guide by delivering commentaries on board tour buses for tourists on sightseeing tours after observing an experienced guide doing her job for just one day.
Later, I attended a tourist guide training course. In those days, such courses were organised once annually at most and became more frequent after licensing of tourist guides was introduced in 1975.
From 1990 to 2000, I was part-time lecturer in tourist guide courses and an official examiner for all three types of practical exams.
During this decade, half of the candidates on average failed their practical exams and will have to re-sit if they wish to obtain the tourist guide licence.
For almost four decades from 1964, duration of tourist guide courses ranged from two weeks to two months until they were extended to a minimum four to six months after the Malaysia Skills Certificate was introduced.
But with people engaging more and more with gadgets, the percentage of Malaysians who can interact well with others are also getting lesser. Likewise, there is a corresponding drop of international and domestic tourists that appreciate, trust or understand what others, including tourist guides, tell them.
Over time, many professions and customer service jobs will disappear.
Those planning for their own future or children should take heed of the rapid changes made possible by artificial intelligence, which is the brains behind Industry 4.0 and has been disrupting current technologies and shaping future trends such as Internet of Things, virtual reality and robotics. Much of the world and the way we live and work will be transformed.
While most other developed and developing countries are gearing toward the future, we are not stagnating either. But alas, we are going full steam towards the opposite direction!
So instead of progressing, we are regressing to the years before I was born. Although most people were poor, many have fond memories of the halcyon days in the decade before and after independence.
Education then was good and not an issue. Those who studied in English schools were colour-blind as students mixed and played together freely.
Although non-Malay students scored higher in exams, the best leaders and thinkers of our country came from the Malay community, thanks to their intellect and exposure to English education.
They included Dato’ Sir Onn Dato’ Jaafar who founded Umno, Tun Dr Ismail who would have been the best prime minister had he not passed away while serving as deputy prime minister, former Lord President Tun Mohamed Suffian Mohamed Hashim, former governor of Bank Negara Tun Ismail Mohamad Ali, and our much honoured first prime minster Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj.
In the absence of truly great leaders to steer the nation towards the right direction, our country will remain relatively backward, not just in economy but also in mentality. And the greatest disaster of all is our failed education system.
We are now saddled with large number of academics and students in local tertiary institutions unable to think for themselves.
Instead of promoting reading, writing and arithmetic, the 3R in education, pseudo leaders are championing race, religion and rulers, the 3R of Malaysian politics to gain popularity. And they have succeeded in getting the support from large number of unthinking Malaysians easily swayed by emotions.
But feelings of superiority and entitlements do not bring real progress, which can only be achieved through genuine effort and hard work.
A country or a community cannot be raised by putting others down, but our politicians are busy politicking instead of leading our people and nation out of the quagmire.
The mother of all ironies is those fighting for both race and religion. How is that possible when religion does not discriminate against race?
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the New Sarawak Tribune.
