Finding Miss Fong is the touching story of a young man determined to pursue his life’s dream of teaching biology and the sudden turn his life takes following a chance meeting with the beautiful and intriguing Miss Fong Moke Chee. Why was this an important book for you to write?

There are two major reasons I wrote Finding Miss Fong. First, I wanted our children and grandchildren and possible future generations to know how Moke Chee and I met, about our friendship turning into a romance and the obstacles we faced and the sacrifices Moke Chee made to marry me. Second, I wanted to record a first-person account of the Peace Corps at its inception for historians. The Peace Corps had never been done before. There was no roadmap on how to do the Peace Corps, so we made it up as we went along.

What is one pivotal moment in the story that you think best defines Jim?

The moment that defines my character is when I had to figure out a way to teach my Malay students Islam because they were facing a national exam on Islam. I engaged the community in the process and demonstrated I respected them, their beliefs, and their culture. I earned the name American Ustas (Islam Teacher) for my effort. On a personal level, a pivotal moment comes after Moke Chee and I marry, and as was the family custom, I knelt before Moke Chee’s Nanny, parents, grandmother and uncles and aunts while serving each of them tea and pledging my fidelity to Moke Chee, her parents, grandmother, and their customs.

What is one thing you hope readers take away from your story?

I want my readers to feel they have been treated to a journey with me back to Malaysia in the 1960s. I want them to experience Malaysia as I experienced it, and I want them to experience the range of my innermost feelings, failures, triumphs, and most of all I want them to experience falling in love with an exotic woman in an exotic land. I want them to feel good and happy knowing no obstacle in life is too great.

Can you tell us a little about what you are currently working on?

I am currently working on a collection of short stories featuring people I met in Malaysia. I’ve finished one called “Salamander Man” about a man unable to walk and unable to find a wife who finally finds love. Another, “The Amah and the Bus,” which is a story about me and an amah on a bus, and “Kidnapped,” a story of when two military officers accused me of being CIA and how I foiled their attempt to kidnap me. I’m currently working on “The Life of Lee Lye Ho,” who happens to be Nanny in Finding Miss Fong. Also in the works is “The Life of Lim Saw Chin,” Miss Fong’s mother, told from her asymmetric view of the world.

Author Links: GoodReads