In 1961, Jim Wolter leaves medical school in Chicago for Malaya thinking he could change the world by teaching biology and avoid his mother's dream of his marrying Lolly. He’s excited about his new job as a biology teacher at a secondary school in Malaya. But that excitement is short-lived. After he arrives, his bosses pull a bait-and-switch and put him in teaching jobs he isn’t qualified for and create other challenges to fit their own motives. Disappointed and feeling helpless, he decides to return to Chicago and do what is expected of him. That is, until a friend drags Jim to a work picnic on an island in the South China Sea and he sees the most beautiful girl in the world. Now, Jim wants to stay in Malaya to be near Miss Fong Moke Chee.   

Finding Miss Fong is the journey of a naïve twenty-two year old from the northwest side of Chicago trying to find his way in an unfamiliar world back in the early 1960s. As a biologist from a working-class background thrust into post-Colonial Malaya, he finds himself caught up in unexpected adventures while struggling with disillusionment in work and juggling entanglements in love.

A lifelong Chicagoan, Jim Wolter has been dedicated to education, serving as a special education teacher, a public school administrator, a university professor, and an administrative law judge. Now retired, his hobbies and creative endeavors include writing and sculpting. Jim is an experienced public speaker and has short stories published in Worldview Magazine and an essay published in Peace Corps Worldwide and in U.S. News and World Report. Northern Illinois University has serialized online his discussions about the innovations he created while teaching in Malaysia. As a sculptor, his works are installed at several locations in Illinois, including a metal sculpture called Summer Reader at Northern Illinois University’s Reading Center, a sculpture at the Winnetka Public Library in Winnetka, Illinois, and a desktop ceramic St. Patrick at the Irish American Heritage Center in Chicago.