No News Is Bad News
National Unity Minister Aaron refutes Dr M!
KUALA LUMPUR, Sug 31, 2023: Wow! National Unity Minister Aaron Ago Dagang has finally started earning his keep as minister - taking on Malaysia’s No.1 racial-religious bigot Dr Mahathir Mohamad (Dr M) who had govern the country for a total of 26 years.
Aaron refuted Dr M’s claim that closing down vernacular schools was the best way to reduce the racial divide.
“They have become elements that promote racial unity, not divide,” Aaron was quoted as saying by Sin Chew today.
And yes! Didn’t anyone notice the growing number of Malay parents who have and are sending their to Chinese schools? Likewise, Tamil schools also.
More Malaysian Malays studying in Chinese primary schools today versus a decade ago
Malay students comprise 15.33 per cent of the total student population in Chinese primary schools in 2020, compared to 9.5 per cent in 2010. PHOTO: REUTERS
PUBLISHED
NOV 11, 2020, 2:46 PM SGT
KUALA LUMPUR (THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - There are more non-Chinese students enrolled in Chinese vernacular schools this year compared to a decade ago, said Education Minister Mohd Radzi Md Jidin on Wednesday (Nov 11).
Malay students comprised 15.33 per cent of the total student population in Chinese primary schools in 2020, compared to 9.5 per cent in 2010, Dr Mohd Radzi told Parliament in a written reply.
Ethnic Indians in these Chinese-language schools rose to 2.75 per cent of the total student population this year, versus 1.67 per cent a decade ago.
There are more than 1,200 Chinese and 523 Tamil primary schools in Malaysia that use either Mandarin or Tamil as the medium of instruction.
These are separate from the government-run national schools that use Malay as the medium of instruction.
Under Malaysia's education system, these students, on completing their primary education, will join the national secondary schools or private schools.
The minister said data from his ministry also showed that enrolment into Chinese schools from Malaysia's other races rose from 1.02 per cent in 2010 to 1.67 per cent this year.
He did not give the total number of students in these 1,200-plus Chinese-language schools.
Due to the rising number of non-Chinese in these schools, Dr Radzi said the total number of ethnic Chinese have dropped to 80.25 per cent this year, from 88.16 per cent in 2010.
He was responding to a question in Parliament from an opposition MP about the distribution of students in national schools, Chinese and Tamil vernacular schools and private schools.
For Tamil vernacular schools, the majority of students, 99 per cent, comprised Indian students, the minister said.
"The participation of Malay, Chinese and of other races is less than 1 per cent in the same period," he said.
Dr Radzi said figures showed that the Malay student enrolment in national schools between 2010 until 2020 was between 93 and 94 per cent.
"The enrolment of Chinese students shows a declining trend from 1.17 per cent in 2010 to 0.73 per cent in 2020," he said. This means that fewer Chinese parents are sending their children to national schools.
"The enrolment of Indian students also dropped from 3.15 per cent to 2.63 per cent within the same period," he said.
Meanwhile for private schools, ethnic Chinese recorded the highest number of the total student population, with 65.88 per cent in 2020.
This was followed by Malays including those in Sabah and Sarawak (26.96 per cent), Indians (4 per cent) and other races (3.17 per cent).
"The participation of Malay students have shown an increase of 0.65 per cent while Chinese students showed a declining trend of 0.44 per cent while Indian students also decreased by 0.21 per cent compared to 2019," he said, referring to the private schools. - The Straits Times
Many Chinese-educated Malays have also succeeded in their professions, including in the entertainment industry in China.
The Chinese school Malays are also sought-after by employers for their multi-lingual traits.
The following are three examples:
https://gempak.com/rojakdaily/entertainment/meet-malaysian-singer-whose-song-has-garnered-more-170-million-views-china-56030 (Meet The Malaysian Singer Whose Song Has Garnered More Than 170 Million Views … In China - and his name is Firdhaus)
https://www.redbull.com/my-en/music-6-malaysian-stars-made-it-big-on-their-own (6 Malaysian Stars Who Made It Big On Their Own)
EH, WHO DIS MALAY SINGER THAT HAS MILLIONS OF FANS IN…CHINA??
Posted on 06/05/2016
OMG y’all…did you hear that a Malaysian artist will be singing for the Rio Olympics in August??! Yeap, Yunalis Zarai, or better known as Yuna, will be one of 5 singers in the promo song for the upcoming games alongside other flers like Corrine Bailey Rae and Cinna from The Hunger Games Lenny Kravitz. The music video isn’t out yet but the promo to the promo song is up on YouTube.
But while Yuna has achieved amazing things on the western side of the world (dueting with Usher is definitely something), another Malaysian has seen her popularity boom on the other side of the world – mainly China.
And her name is Shila Amzah. Image from helloasia.com.au
Shila Amzah is a huge superstar in China. After finishing 3rd in the China-based reality singing competition ‘I Am a Singer‘ she ended up soaring in popularity. She currently has 2.5 million followers on microblogging site Weibo (a China hybrid of Twitter and Facebook), and 1.5 million followers on Instagram! finished
But why da heck is a Malaysian joining a singing competition all the way in China???
Well….
She actually started out in the Malaysian music scene first
Shila Amzah (or Xila to her fans in China) isn’t some newbie to the music industry. She’s actually the daughter of ND Lala, a Malaysian artist from the 1980’s, and she actually won many singing competitions as a kid.
But that’s not all. Some of you may remember her as Shila OIAM because back in 2008, she was actually runner-up on the Malaysian reality singing competition, ‘One in a Million (OIAM)‘!
And now that she’s in China, she’s one in a billion! Image from mstar.com.my
However, a combination of factors (like her contract, wanting to step out of her father’s shadow, and the advice of a music producer) led her to decide that she needed to go somewhere else to further her career.
But why China? Well, with her being keen to expand her international audience, her dad ND Lala, or Amir Amzah Salleh, submitted a video of her to a Shanghai TV station. This led to her getting invited to another reality singing competition, Asian Wave, which she won! It was at this point that she started to focus on her career in China.
After all this only she joined ‘I Am a Singer’ which shot her to super-stardom in China. Check out one of her powerful performances below.
Hold on, did we forget to mention that she sang in Chinese? In fact, when she first started out, she actually didn’t know Mandarin very well!!
“After I sang my song and went into the room full of performers, I had no idea what they were talking about … I nodded when they called my name. When people laughed, I laughed too.” – Shila Amzah talking about her experience on ‘I Am a Singer’, as quoted by South China Morning Post
During the competition, she even had to memorise the words to the songs because she didn’t know the language! And honestly because we CILISOS flers (almost) all banana, we just wanna ask y’all…
Did Shila Amzah pull off the song above well?
Yes! She said all the words flawlessly!
A few mistakes here and there, very good for a non-Mandarin speaker
No, she made a lot of mistakes.
VOTEView ResultsCrowdsignal.com
[Update: A CILISOS reader brought up that Shila actually had a good command of Mandarin before going to China. We cannot say for sure how good exactly was her Mandarin before going there, but this article (it’s in Chinese though) mentions that she took Mandarin classes until standard 2, and started brushing up on it again when she entered ‘I Am a Singer’. But from the looks of it, it wasn’t top notch la. Still pretty amazing for her to be able to do what she did though.]
But with all this success in China, is there a chance that she would become a household name here too? Mebe not so soon la, because of something that happened in 2014.
She did come back to Malaysia, but the media tak layan her
Screencap from rotikaya.com
In 2014, Shila Amzah announced that she would be having 2 concerts that year. First in China, then after that in Malaysia. While her concert in China went about without much issues (aside from some fella criticising it), it was the aftermath of her Malaysian concert in September that made news.
Collage of Malaysian newspaper coverage of the event. Image from Says.com but originally from Shila Amzah’s Instagram (which is currently private for some reason).
As the story goes, while her concert (which was her first solo concert in Malaysia) received a lot of attention from the Chinese media, not one Malay language media covered it.
NAH, BACA:
Got an IDEA for your dream BAR in Ipoh/KL/Penang/JB? Guinness might make it into a reality ;)
This triggered a lot of questions from her fans and some subtly sarcastic comments by Shila, especially when most Malay newspapers responded by saying they were not aware of the concert. So big was this issue that even Datuk Siti Nurhaliza weighed in on the situation.
Long story short, the Malay newspaper Kosmo! said that the reason many Malay newspapers were not invited was because they claimed one of the sponsors of the concert was the biggest syarikat judi in Malaysia. And well, gambling is haram, so it made sense not to invite the Malay media.
That wasn’t the end because not long after that, Shila and her dad organised a press conference to dispel the rumours that one of their sponsors was a syarikat judi. Sadly, it seems that it didn’t go so well la, the relationship between Shila and the Malay media didn’t recover. It seems pretty clear that the Malay media has boycotted her, and she even pulled out of contesting in the Anugerah Bintang Popular, an annual awards show, because of it.
And as long as things remain as they are (as far as we know there’s currently even a defamation case going on between her and Kosmo!), it’s hard to imagine her furthering her career in Malaysia anytime soon.
Maybe things just weren’t meant to work out for Shila in Malaysia… at least for now
Back in 2012 after she had won ‘Asian Wave’, Shila actually said this in an interview.
“Actually, if one were to say that Malaysian artists are untalented, they must have not been doing their homework. We have a lot of talented artists, they just don’t get the right opportunities. That’s all.” – Shila Amzah, as quoted by Sinar Harian, translated by SOSCILI.my!
And coming from someone who has been exposed to the music industry since the age of around 9-10 ish, that’s really saying something.
And as she continues to reach new milestones in her career (like performing in Perth, Australia, and being picked by Cartoon Network to sing the BM and Mandarin versions of the theme song for the new Powerpuff Girls cartoon!) the more it seemed like another case of a talented Malaysian not allowing circumstances to get the better of them and persevere towards their dream. Even if that meant looking for better opportunities abroad.
Powerpuff! Ti ti ti ti ti ti! Image from thehive.asia
But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to come back and be successful here though. This is something she said last year.
“If someone becomes famous abroad, they will also become popular back in their own country … Don’t people think that way?” – Shila Amzah, as quoted by South China Morning Post
And if she can say that with tons of fans already screaming her name in China, we don’t see why she can’t win the hearts of Malaysians one day too. Just keep up what you’ve been doing, gurrrlll.
Update: A reader told us that she very announced her latest album! In what is her debut Chinese studio album, she sings in Chinese, Malay, AND English! It’s not out in stores yet, but she said it will be in the next week (2 weeks when she first wrote the post).
And yeap, the album will be called ‘My Journey’. Image from Shila Amzah’s official Facebook page.
No News Is Bad News readers can Google for more Malaysian international successesin various fields or professions.
And, we reproduce below a news report on the minister blasting Dr M:
Vernacular schools promote racial unity, minister tells Dr M
Aaron Ago Dagang says that Malay students going through the system are now able to speak fluent Tamil or Mandarin.
FMT Reporters - 31 Aug 2023, 6:00pm
National unity minister Aaron Ago Dagang said he found out recently that vernacular schools had brought many benefits to Malay students. (Bernama pic)
PETALING JAYA: National unity minister Aaron Ago Dagang has refuted Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s claim that closing down vernacular schools is the best way to reduce the racial divide.
“They have become elements that promote racial unity, not divide,” Aaron was quoted as saying by Sin Chew today.
He said he found out recently that vernacular schools had brought many benefits to Malay students who were able to speak fluent Tamil or Mandarin after completing their education.
Mahathir said yesterday that one of the best ways to reduce the racial divide was through education, which included abolishing vernacular schools.
He also claimed there were “certain races” who refused to enrol their children in national schools because they were akin to religious schools.
However, Mahathir said, even if the situation improved in national schools, ethnic minorities would still avoid enrolling their children.
The former prime minister has been critical of the vernacular school system in the past, claiming that it has divided the country.
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