The fickleness of folk, observed from a distance, can be illuminating or even downright amusing.

During and just after the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), I used to travel regularly to many Asian countries where, as we all know, business is substantially conducted by the Chinese Diaspora.

Though many have adopted or were forced to adopt local names like "Sanussi", "Ricardo" or "de Jesus", the Chineneseness of the guys hiding behind local names remains written all over their faces. Inevitably, during the mandatory business dinners in the 70's and 80's, when the unavoidable ethnic topic was raised, my opening shot would sound something like:

"Ah, Mr Sanussi, you are Chinese, eh?"

Mr Sanussi and 99 per cent of the other ethnic Chinese I happened to meet would then invariably answer with: "No, no, I do not consider myself Chinese, I am a third generation local. Admittedly, my forbears came from China but I really feel and am regarded as an Indonesian."

They would proudly boast that they could not even write anything in Chinese and, after all, "China was, economically, quite a basket case right now; who would even WANT to be Chinese?"

Upon my postulating that China had great potential that had only to be unleashed, Mr. Sanussi would scoff that this was not likely to happen during his lifetime.

On my asking "Would you send your son to Beijing to study Chinese?" I would get an indignant reply: "Oh, no, my son will have better things to do, I want him to get an MBA in the US and then carve out a career in Indonesia; who wants to learn the Chinese language, I mean, complicated and utterly useless, right?"

No matter whether I would opine that if I had been Chinese, I would definitely have an interest in the place where my great-great parents' cradle once stood and, quite likely, I would also want to learn the language of my forbears...

"Oh no, sir, Chinese as a language is useless and, please, we are NOT Chinese!" I would hear from Manila to Melaka.

A lot of water has flown under the bridge since then.

So dramatic a change, in fact, that a large part of the tens of thousands of "Sea turtles" (Chinese who studied and settled in the West and who are now returning) are setting up businesses in China as if there is no to-morrow.

Interestingly, the tunes sung by the third and fourth generation Chinese in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand have changed too.

During business dinners I might have there, the Philippine Chinese proudly tell me now that: "Of course we are Chinese. Oh yes, and the Chinese economy is galloping ahead; an economic miracle, you know."

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