A 19th-century Malay writer once observed that the founding of Singapore had made 'dragons out of worms and worms out of dragons'.
A different Malay writer in 1927 said that 'the knowledge that is give to people under foreign influence has no purpose other than to impoverish the intellect and teach them to lick the soles of their masters' boots.'
Apparently (according to Steinberg et al. In Search of SEA 1987 anyway) they were both talking about the system of 'public instruction' imposed/established by the European colonialists in SEA.
interlude: some drunk idiots pressed the emergency button in the lift while on the first floor and said oh hey look the lift is stuck and so climbed the stairs instead with their pizzas instead of releasing the emergency button whose alarm can be heard all through the damn building
In 1906, one of the most important of the early Malay journals listed no fewer than 26 different virtues of newspapers, among them that they were 'the light of the mind, the talisman of the thoughts, the mirror of events, the servant of the wise, the prompter of the forgetful, a guide to those who stray, a prop to the weak, the guardian of the community, and the forum for all discussion.'
A 'self-satire' by Nguyen Khuyn, a Vietnamese provincial governor-general and writer, on the discrepancy between the form and realities of power and talent in the mandarin class. Round about 1885.
When I open my mouth, I speak strongly and with a bookish authority. Yet my soft, flaccid lips can also drink me into drunken stupours. When I think of myself I am disgusted with myself, yet even with all this...my name has appeared upon the gold examination list.'