KOTA KINABALU, Malaysia -- Agnes Keith, an American author who lived nearly a century ago in Sandakan, in the British protectorate of North Borneo -- now the Malaysian state of Sabah -- had a way with words. She described a 1937 party to celebrate the coronation of Britain's King George VI thus: "There are the pagan tribes of Borneo and the ladies of [the colonial town], drinking tea and eating cakes together ...