The only thing regional servers affect in this game is who you play with. There's no artificial restrictions, you can still use the English client setting. Tonberry is considered to be the unofficial English server for SEA, be they aussies, expats, or anyone else that might be in the region but isn't Japanese.

It's about 220ms if you're west coast. Unplayable for shooters, decently playable for a slower RPG like this as long as you can anticipate mechanics a bit.

Ctrl C + Ctrl V works on ingame text.