Just completed The Windup Girl - a Hugo winner for 2009

The settings is great. Story is in Thailand, but there is a lot of flashbacks to Malaya and its future especially from a Malaysian Chinese point of view (quite matching the stereotype of a typical Chinese).
Can't say too much without spoiling it. What I liked best was the author's description of the world after the petroleum era. It is quite novel. Plot is so-so, but the pacing is good.

Overall, it's a good read.

I agree with you. Windup Girl is the first English novel I read with Chinese dialect curse words. I bought it at popular and started asking myself "What the heck is the Censorship Board doing?" after I'm done reading it.

There is another book out by the same author. Pump Six and other stories. It is a collection of short stories. His website can read part of these short stories for free.