A grandson of slaves, a boy was born in a poor neighbourhood of New Orleans known as the “Back of Town.” His father abandoned the family when the child was an infant. His mother became a prostitute and the boy and his sister had to live with their grandmother. Early in life he proved to be gifted for music and with three other kids he sang in the streets of New Orleans. His first gains were coins that were thrown to them.
A Jewish family, Karnofsky, who had emigrated from Lithuania to the USA, had pity for the 7-year-old boy and brought him into their home. Initially giving ‘work’ in the house, to feed this hungry child. There he remained and slept in this Jewish family’s home where, for the first time in his life, he was treated with kindness and tenderness. When he went to bed, Mrs. Karnovsky sang him a Russian lullaby that he would sing with her. Later, he learned to sing and play several Russian and Jewish songs.
Over time, this boy became the adopted son of this family. The Karnofskys gave him money to buy his first musical instrument; as was the custom in the Jewish families.
They sincerely admired his musical talent. Later, when he became a professional musician and composer, he used these Jewish melodies in compositions, such as St. James Infirmary and Go Down Moses.
The little black boy grew up and wrote a book about this Jewish family who had adopted him in 1907. In memory of this family and until the end of his life, he wore a Star of David and said that in this family, he had learned “how to live real life and determination.”
You might recognize his name. This little boy was called: Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong.
Louis Armstrong proudly spoke fluent Yiddish! And “Satchmo” is Yiddish for “Big Cheeks”!!!
And I’ll bet you did not know any of this.
If you google Louis Armstrong – What A Wonderful World – YouTube, you can listen to his famous tune.
By the way, about 10 years ago, I started giving scholarships to help poor students to complete their tertiary education. Up to date, about 200 of my scholarship recipients have graduated and about 100 are still studying in Universities.
If you know of poor students with a minimum of 6A in SPM, whose parents are earning less than Rm 3,000 per month, tell them to write to my wife, kitpheng@gmail.com for my scholarships. My wife is in charge of this charity.
After graduation, all my scholarship recipients do not need to pay back the amount of money I spent on them and also they are not bonded to work for me. But they must remember that when they were poor, I helped them and when they have money to spare, they should help other poor students. In this way, there will be a lot of graduates helping poor students when I die.
The reason why I stipulated a minimum of 6 A in SPM is because there are too many Universities that are lowering their entry qualification to captures more students. We have received application letters with broken English, every sentence has a grammatical error.
Opening up Universities is a profitable business. That is why you can see more than 30 University advertisements along the North-South highway. There are more than 500 universities and colleges in Malaysia, probably the most university per capita in the world.
Koon Yew Yin 官有缘 - What a little help can do?
http://koonyewyin.com/2016/09/26/what-a-little-help-can-do/
