There is no issue here. She remains very Muslim. She gets her own religious education on Islam outside of school. That's one reason, you see, why the Malays have grown more comfortable with such matters. Like the rest of Singapore, the community knows what Mr Othman's father knew way back when his grandfather refused to see the light, that the English language and a mainstream education are keys to a brighter future, as long as one's own culture and beliefs were not eroded, he says.
Malay parents recognise the importance of their children learning other languages too.
My cousin sends his two children to Chinese school, and they speak Mandarin very well. Dressed in a conservative greyish-brown shirt, with a blue tie dotted with red roses, Mr Othman recalls his own family's history, and draws a personal sketch of race relations on the island. The first four years of my life, I grew up in a Malay-dominated quarters area, with long barracks with attap roofs. It was my uncle's quarters actually, where my grandparents and my parents lived too, and we had to sleep all over the floor. Next door to our kampung were Chinese farms, vegetables and pigs.