How feng shui has changed

As a music lover, I was attracted to a piece of news featured in the Star today. There was also a picture of school girls playing digital pianoes .

Star online also carried the news and had a youtube video about it too. You can view the news and the video  here.

Part of the news read like this:

The Deputy Prime Minister said research had shown that children exposed to music perform better than those who are not.

Muhyiddin, who is also Educa tion Minister, added that countries with good academic performance, such as Hungary, the Netherlands, the United States and Japan, gave emphasis to music education.

He said this at a presentation of digital pianos by South Korea’s Booyoung Housing Co Ltd to Malaysian schools at Sekolah Sultan Alam Shah here yesterday.

Booyoung donated 3,000 digital pianos, 50 of which would be given to the Korean community in Malaysia.

Indeed it is true that music helps in mental development and students with music background often do better and think better.

We Malaysians should be thankful to S Korea for being so kind as to donate so many digital pianoes to our schools.

I am happy and at the same time feel a bit sour-ish inside me.

Happy because if we have to pay for so many digital pianoes, the price would be astronomical, remembering how much a school paid for its computer as pointed out in the Auditor General’s report last year. If my memory has not failed me, a lap top was bought for  about RM40000 + . So if we have to pay for these pianoes, I am sure we would have to pay hundreds  of millions (if not in the region of billions) for them, going by the experience as highlighted year in and year out in the AG’s report.

SO, as a tax payer, i feel relieved and happy that we have at least saved so much.

At the same time, I feel sour-ish inside..It was because in the next paragraph, the news report mentioned this:

The company has made similar donations to schools in Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.

I feel sour-ish because Malaysia is now placed in the same league as Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. I can understand Thailand, but to be in the same league as Laos and Cambodia? In the eyes of international businesses, we have now been classified in this grouping.

I remember we were so much ahead of South Korea in the 60s, and were equal to SKorea in the early 80s. ALso I remember how Malaysia used to donate stuff to countries in Africa in the 70s and 80s, helping the less developed countries of that continent.

Now, we are deemed to be in the same league as Cambodia, Laos, and so on.

How feng shui has changed!