Unknown Pedang Melayu (Malay Sword) ?

[ausjulius]

i think the japanese stype dates far back as ive seen very old japanese swordswith thai and burmese fittings, and the fittings look several 100 years old, also phillipine swords with japanese blades.. i can imagine that at one point japanese traders and mercenaries and pirates were common all over eastern asia.
many vietnamese swords use japanese blades also.
to be honest although in the past the japanese imported korean and chinese blades .. it seems a long time back the japanese surpassed the chinese in the export of their blades. as you can see many chinese swords with japanese blades also, or japanese style and japanese blades seem far more common in south east asia than chinese.
i suppose after ww2 all the "jap towns" in asia were pretty much destroyed by the local populations and so there is little evidence of these once numerous japanese settlements