[Editor's Note] Chinese Lessons

To be here / Is to be a people waiting for the wind's roots / Our ancestors are encircled by annual rings, / Scarred, / Broken wood, / They have become the earth that enfolds roots; / The earth's pulse / Animates their veins; / With one urging from the ancestors: / Don't underestimate yourselves!" -From "Awaiting the Wind's Roots," by Malaysian-Chinese writer Hsiao Man.

A glance at this poem is enough to cause a quickening of the heart. What emotions are they that make ordinary people who have left their homes and settled in foreign lands persist in speaking their native tongues, tell their own stories, write in their own words, passing everything down from generation to generation, from the middle of the 19th century all the way to the 21st century?

Ethnic Chinese comprise about 6 million of Malaysia's population of 26 million. Around 90% of their children study in Chinese-language primary schools within the government system. With straightforward names like "Revere Confucius," "China" and "Glorious China," they are a reminder of just how committed Malaysian Chinese are to keeping their culture alive.

Even in middle school, when it's clear that they will need to work twice as hard to study simultaneously in both Malay and in Chinese, so as to avoid being cut off from the road to further education, 50-60,000 students in Malaysia study at independent Chinese middle schools, where dearly held Chinese traditions are passed down.

Spare a moment's thought for the difficult situation facing these children. At home, they speak Mandarin and Cantonese or Hokkien, but when they go out shopping they speak Malay, when they bump into Indian friends they speak Tamil, and with the local indigenous peoples they speak the native dialects. And to assure their future, they have to put great effort into studying English. In this environment of switching back and forth between languages, on the one hand they maintain their sense of Malaysian identity, and on the other their sense of belonging to the Malaysian-Chinese community. They even perhaps have warm feelings about the Chinas on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, while longing for the greater world of Europe and America.

Perhaps because their language education is so diverse in the six years of primary school, the majority of children do not speak Chinese very graciously or very fluently. Meanwhile, due to the presence of Malay and English, some people worry that they may fail to achieve fluency in any of the languages. But despite such hesitations, in the end they are keeping up with Chinese education in a land far from China. Don't forget, around 90% of Malaysian-Chinese children study at Chinese primary schools-a startling ratio.

The fact that there are 1,200 Chinese primary schools embodies the Malaysian government's well-intentioned commitment to ethnic cultural diversity. At the same time, the gates of Chinese primary schools are wide open, welcoming children of all ethnic backgrounds to come and study. More than 60,000 non-Chinese students are enrolled at Chinese primary schools, and at star Chinese primary schools intakes are so high that funds are insufficient and teaching resources inadequate, making Malaysian Chinese both happy and sad. As for the independent Chinese schools, which receive no government subsidies, shouldn't it prompt us to wonder whether we can't do something to help them stay afloat?

Looking at the wider world, the perseverance of Malaysian Chinese in sticking with Chinese education is a marvelous thing. One is reminded of how Sim Mow-yu, the doyen of Chinese education in Malaysia, called it "protecting the spirit." Forget how difficult this might be for live-for-the-moment Europeans and Americans: even Chinese communities elsewhere around the world can only sigh in embarrassment. Worse, even we Taiwanese have cause to feel somewhat ashamed.

It's also worth pointing out that in recent years Southeast Asian studies have come into vogue. But those who set out on that road and really begin to understand Southeast Asia may well discover that Taiwan has a very shallow understanding of its immediate neighbors. Meanwhile ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, excludes Taiwan from its membership. It would only be right for us to pay more attention to this part of the world, with its close historical, geographical and cultural connections to Taiwan.