Well, most people around the world would look at Caucasians with high regard. I'm not sure why they are so looked upon with high esteem by these people. I heard stories about Arabs love Caucasians and Arab men are craving to marry a white chick. In Saudi Arabia, for example, they even hire Caucasians for higher posts in government hospitals such as in King Faisal of Riyad.
In Malaysia, of course, people would find that it is cool to mingle with Caucasians and to speak in English among themselves. So, they would feel appreciated when a Caucasian speaks in Malay as if Malay is purified by the mouth of Caucasians. Urban Malays and non-Malays prefer to speak in English although it is not their national language. I tend to associate their view or attitude in our national language to gedikness and mengada-ngada factors rather than educational purpose.
So, here are some of the links that I could get with regard to Caucasians who studied the bahasa Melayu for reference:
- Ben Bradshaw, youtube channel.
- Mat Salleh jalan-jalan cari makan, Rhys William
- Mat Dan kaki jalan, I can't locate this guy's written material and this is an Instagram link
- Belacan dan Paku, I don't know their names but they have a youtube channel.
- The Malay Language - Language Focus which talks about a specific language by request, the admin of this channel, Paul is a linguist I guess
I regret that most of urban Malay speakers would automatically speak English when they encounter white men rather than speaking in Malay to teach foreigners who already know few Malay words. I believe this happened due to an inferiority complex and mental block that they create in their mind, just to impress others.
So far, I can only find few western foreigners learning Malays from online resources. Unlike other languages in Southeast Asia, for example, Indonesian language and Thai. There are many western foreigners learning their national languages.
