If we really wanted to improve our global economic stature, we would invest in more music teachers.

That’s our competitive advantage in global commerce.

I recently returned from a trip to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Shanghai.

At the Park Hyatt Hotel in Saigon, a beautiful Japanese singer entertained each night in the c0mmodious hotel lounge and she sang the great American songbook. She was wonderful! When I requested it, she sang Leonard Cohen’s great “Hallelujah.”

On the cruise on the Mekong River, we had a last night party. The staff, about 36 young Cambodians, dressed in their most gorgeous Cambodian finery and they danced traditional Cambodian dances. Then the music changed to: “The Twist.” Suddenly all the passengers and all the crew–the cooks, the laundresses, the room cleaners, the sailors, the waiters and waitresses–danced together. All status and position disappeared in the joy of dancing to an American oldie. Then the record changed to Bill Haley, and “Rock Around the Clock,” and again Cambodians and Americans shared the fun of the music and the dancing.

In Shanghai, at the elegant Peninsula Hotel, there is a chanteuse with a gorgeous husky voice, and she specialized in American songs. She sang Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Billy Joel, Karen Carpenter. All of the Chinese in the room were reading their cell phones–it is a concerning obsessive behavior. We saw a family at breakfast where the mother, the father, and a child about five each had their own cell phones. But back to the singer. She even sang “All That Jazz” from “Chicago.” We applauded enthusiastically, but that doesn’t seem to be the local custom.

American music has a  universal audience. Every child who wishes to should have the chance to learn an instrument, sing, dance, enjoy the music that the world loves.