Sounds like a throw back to the days when Chinese were persecuted for the communist insurgency against the Brits in the 1950s. And Indians were the lapdogs of the Brits. The elders would've been in their prime then and was probably rounded up on by the Indians.
It is pure conjecture on my part.
Perhaps someone from Malaysia would enlighten us.
Lee Kuan Yew further said
Any doctor will tell you in our hospitals, that even if you just touch an Indian with an injection he is howling. The Chinaman isn’t. He has got a very high tolerance for pain …
When doing a project [the British] would put the Chinese in the middle and put the Indians at the side, and the Indians were expected to keep the pace of the Chinese. And there was a hell of a problem, because one Chinese would carry one pole with two wicker baskets of earth, whereas two Indians would carry one pole with one wicker basket between them. So it’s one quarter. Now that’s culture. Maybe it has to do with genetic characteristics, I’m not sure.
Throughout East Asia, because they were influenced by China and probably not just by culture alone, there must have been a lot of similar genes, similar stock, probably the physical makeup was not very different, so they were very intense types, hard-driving, hard- striving people. Whereas if you go to India, you’ll find sadhus, holy men, people who abjure the world, who go around giving land away or begging from the rich to give to the poor. It’s a totally different culture. There’s the sort of Gandhi saintliness. It’s not the model in China. In China, the model is either Three Kingdoms or Shui Hu Zhuan, Water Margin, the kind of hero who forms a robber band and kills off wealthy people. You don’t go begging from the wealthy to give to the poor. You just kill the wealthy and take from them.
So it is a completely different philosophy to guide a man in life. The Indians have a more tolerant and forgiving approach to life. More next-worldly. If you do good, then in the next world you’ll get rewarded.
I understand the Englishman. He knows deep in his heart that he is superior to the Welshman and the Scotsman. That is why the Welshman and the Scotsman now, particularly the Scotsman with the North Sea oil, says, “O.K., I want to be independent on my own.” … Deep here, I am a Chinaman.
The Chinaman who came out to Southeast Asia was a very hard working, thrifty person. I mean he faced a tremendous stride because he faced floods, pestilence, famine and the drive. The capacity for hard work and sustained effort is something to be seen, to be believed. And we are getting soft. You know, I mean, all sunshine and bananas growing on trees and coconuts falling down by themselves – this affects the people. I don’t know. To a certain extent, you can try and counter it. You know, make sure that you don’t being, sort of, get reduced to keep it going and create a stagnant sort of society. You know, the Americans possess their tropical areas too and chaps sitting down by the lagoons and so on.
Look at the number of smart Teochews there are … just count them. Teo Chee Hean, Lim Hng Kiang, George Yeo, Lim Boon Heng. Is it a coincidence? In a Cabinet of 15, how do you explain that? For that matter, the Hakkas consider themselves very special too. They are tough, resourceful, they were latecomers who got squeezed to the mountainous areas of the south when they came from the north. They were the only Chinese group that did not bind their women’s feet, because they lived on hilly terrain, had to make a living and couldn’t afford to have women with feet bound. You also have more Hakkas in the Cabinet than are represented in the population. They are supposed to be harder-working, tougher and therefore higher-achievers. So there are these differences even within the races.
the Japanese. Yes, I disliked their bullying and their hitting people and torturing people [during the Japanese Occupation], a brutal way of dealing with people. But they have admirable qualities. And in defeat, I admired them. For weeks, months, they were made, as prisoners, to clean the streets in Orchard Road, Esplanade and I used to watch them. Shirtless, in their dirty trousers but doing a good job. You want me to clean up? Okay, I clean up, that’s my job. None of this reluctance, you know, and humiliated shame. My job is to clean up; all right, I clean up. I think that spirit rebuilt Japan. It was a certain attitude to life. That assured their success.
it is only the East Asians who are self-confident when dealing with the West. Both (Japan and China) have put satellites into orbit, which only America, Russia and France have done. …
They are both confident that it is only a matter of decades before they are equal to most of the West.
Meanwhile in the less developed countries of South and South-east Asia, disillusionment and near despair has set in because of their failure to make the grade.
