First to karaoke, then to medical check-up

NST: Army medical officers have come up with an ingenious way to entice the Orang Asli to attend medical check-ups.
They draw them with karaoke sessions and live concerts, after which the Orang Asli queue up at the medical camp.
"Based on our experience, the response from the Orang Asli would be very poor without karaoke sessions or live concerts," said Kapten Rosli Kassim, when met at the Orang Asli settlement in Kampung Sungai Ruil in Cameron Highlands recently.
They will usually hold them the night before the medical check-up camps.
"They are quite shy and we use this to draw them out. But they can be quite a handful once they’ve warmed up. There was one occasion when the karaoke session lasted until almost 4am."
At a recent session, the small crowd which had gathered under the tent about 9pm sat quietly despite repeated calls from army personnel to come up and sing.
Things only warmed up after about an hour, when a group of Orang Asli youth finally plucked up the courage to belt out an up-tempo Malay number on stage.
From then on, army personnel had their hands full with non-stop song requests from the villagers until nearly midnight.
Orang Asli youth Rumi Junos and his friends hoped that more free medical check-ups would be carried in their village.
"At least we get to sing as many songs as we want for free," he said.
It was obvious that the karaoke session that evening did the trick as more than 1,000 Orang Asli from Kampung Sungai Ruil and the surrounding villages turned up the following day for the medical camp.