Interracial marriage blossoms in Malaysia

Today, the children and grandchildren of the chiefs who welcomed Harrison into their community have gone a step further. They're marrying Westerners in droves. And Harrison, who stayed after the war, was one of the first foreign grooms.

"In those days, we didn't want to marry other races," says Tamah Saging, a retired chief who estimates he's about 90 years old. "It must be between Kelabits and Kelabits."

But when Mr. Saging's only son - who until recently was director of immigration in the Sarawak state government - decided to marry an Englishwoman, Saging simply shrugged his shoulders. "What to do?" he says. "I can't say anything."

In some cases, almost all of a family's members have chosen spouses from overseas.

Lilla Raja has been married to Tony Hodder for 12 years. Mr. Hodder, who works in the oil industry in Miri, is originally from Devon, England. Ms. Raja's four sisters have also married Europeans - two Englishmen, a Scot, and a Dutchman. Her eldest brother married a Canadian and moved back home with her. Only her younger brother, Romeo Peta, chose a spouse from closer to home. His bride, Priscilla, is Malay. (Malays, the largest ethnic group in Malaysia, are Muslim. Kelabits, one of the smallest groups, numbering about 5,000, were animist until after World War II; now they're Christian.)

"The Kelabit community is very small," says Raja, "and we're closely related. So you don't really think about getting married to them."

Many meet someone from another nationality when they leave their villages to attend boarding school in Marudi and often remain there afterward. "Nowadays, people with good education, they're bound to meet another person ... from somewhere," says Jaman Riboh, the owner of a local guest lodge.

David Bennett, an Australian pilot who met his Kelabit wife in Bario, believes history also plays a role in the East-West marriages. Western paratroopers and missionaries did more than liberate the province, he says. They set up Bario's first schools, introduced cloth and modern medicine, and supported Sarawak during a war with Indonesia in the 1960s.

"Everything they've seen Europeans do there is for the good of them," says Mr. Bennett.

So why are Western men interested in Kelabit women?

The stereotype is that older white men are attracted to beautiful young Asian women, who are looking for a rich husband or boyfriend. But that's not the case with the Kelabit, says Hodder.

The Kelabit people are outgoing, have good principles, and are progressive in their thinking, he says. "I had absolutely nothing when I met my wife, and that didn't matter."

"Kelabit people just give, give, give," adds Bennett. "That's the sort of people they are. You give them something, they give three back."

Back by the river, as I say my goodbyes at the wedding, one of the village elders, who is also the bride's uncle, approaches me. "Do you remember my name?" he asks.

I have forgotten. "Maybe you can help me out," I say.

"No problem," he replies, taking his hands from behind his back. But instead of telling me his name, he rubs grease taken from the black pots used to prepare the wedding feast across my face. Up until then, I hadn't realized that other guests had also been victims of a traditional prank, though it seems no one had as much grease on their face as I did.

The bride and groom, meanwhile, were waiting playfully behind their uncle, with a bottle of rice wine in hand to toast my predicament.

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