Word: bahasa
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Unlike fellow former British colonies India and Pakistan, Malaysia has yet to produce a Vikram Seth or an Arundhati Roy. There has been no writer of international stature, or even a literary canon?in Bahasa or English?that one could call Malaysian. The Rice Mother, a delicious fictional cocktail packed with Malaysian flavors, may finally put the country on the global publishing map. Plainly, debut novelist Rani Manicka has studied other Asia-themed best sellers such as Wild Swans and The Joy Luck Club to produce a family saga centered on the tempestuous relationships between mothers and their children...
...more volatile than Indonesia, however, because its army doesn't tend to stabilize the country the way that Indonesia's does. "Malaysia is a traditionally passive society, which occasionally explodes in a violent frenzy -- like the anti-Chinese riots in the '60s," says Dowell. "Remember, it was Malaysia's Bahasa language that gave us the phrase 'run amok...
...many corners of the world, those of us born in possession of it are apt to feel as vulnerable as a bejeweled dowager in a dark back alleyway. There's always someone waiting to jump out and mug us with his English -- before we can try out our Bahasa Indonesia...