There was a German guy we used to travel around Malaysia with who had been partly raised by his amah (local nanny) and was fluent in kampong melayu (a vernacular form of Bahasa Malay). The locals are generally easy-going and friendly, but you occasionally would meet with mild suspicion bordering on hostility from village-folk in the hinterlands. As soon as this guy would start yakkin' away at them in the lingo, their jaws would drop, eyes would bug out, then grins, then laughter, then they'd all be shaking their hands in disbelief and asking him over for dinner.

Happened practically every time; a hundred years earlier this guy could've been a rajah puteh or some such. It helped that he really seemed to understand the local humour, and being a younger cousin of Claus Von Stauffenberg probably didn't hurt his confidence either. Still, they should've put his amah in charge of a language school.