Accounts of foreign consuls in exotic locales make good reading. Among my favorites is John Kenneth Galbraith's Ambassador's Journal , a 582-page, delightfully witty tome of his years as President Kennedy's envoy to India in the early 1960s. I learned much about that country, especially its famously creaky bureaucracy, as well as America's own. It turns out that American civil servants are equally adept at delaying and burying reports that do not fit their perception of reality.

Fauziah Mohamad Taib carries on this fine tradition with her A Diplomat Arrives in Washington . For five years she was the Deputy Chef De Mission at the Malaysian embassy in Washington, DC. That city may not rank up there with Timbuktu in the enchantment department, but it is the capital city. I therefore eagerly anticipated reading her account.

There is yet another reason for my eagerness. America, with its inkblot messiness, is a Rorschach test for most foreigners. Often what is viewed as America reveals more about the observer than of America. My major disappointment in meeting important Malaysian visitors to America is that they seemed obsessed with the blight rather than the best of America.

They come to Washington, DC, and see potholes, porno shops and the homeless, but are oblivious of such wonderful institutions as the Smithsonian, Georgetown University, and the National Institutes of Health.

Refreshing departure

Fauziah Mohamad Taib is a refreshing departure. No, she still sees and writes about parts of DC visitors avoid, but she is perceptive enough to appreciate that there is much more to America. She describes with evident wonderment the vibrant splashy colors of Vermont in the fall, and the vastness and grandeur of the Grand Canyon. Even the monotonous expanse of the Great Plains had its own hypnotizing attraction for her.

She was deeply touched with the genuine warmth she experienced in her encounters with ordinary Americans. When visiting Mount Rushmore, she was truly moved when local residents spontaneously waved at her and welcomed her to their little city. This meant more than all the splashy commercials and billboards that beckoned tourists.

Yes, the slums of DC too are part of America, and she was surprised that many of her longtime staff, Americans as well as Malaysians, had not ventured there. I can certainly appreciate that. The only time that I have been through that area of DC was in trying to bypass the congested beltway on my way to Annapolis. As President Reagan once remarked, when you have seen one slum, you have seen them all.

Nonetheless Fauziah is to be commended for daring to venture there; even more remarkable as she is a single woman. This lady has guts!

This book is well written and the prose flows easily; we are thankfully spared the bureaucratese. If this is how she writes her diplomatic dispatches, you can bet that they will be widely read at Wisma Putra.

The book has only slightly over 100 pages of text, and with 19 chapters she does not write much on each topic. Just as it gets interesting, the chapter ends! A literary tease, just like the other kind, can be just as frustrating. And when she does go into some length, she shows remarkable perceptiveness. Her description of Indonesia's President Abdurrahman Wahid whom she met in DC draws out the man's basic humanity and humility. It is also one of the best I have ever read anywhere.

Clinton's hands

Her encounter with President Clinton at a White House reception shortly after his impeachment hearings was revealing. She instinctively recoiled at having to shake his hands, noting how huge they were and what mischief they had been up to! She lost her professional cool, and because of that miscue, she ended up being photographed with the first couple together with a single male ambassador from another country. The upshot was that she was misidentified as the wife of that ambassador!

After reading all the lurid graphic details of Clinton's peccadilloes, her visceral reaction was understandable. I imagine a diplomat in his or her official duties has to shake hands with even more unsavoury characters. I wonder how it would feel to shake the hands of Pol Pot or Saddam Hussein!

The third area she writes in some depth is the controversial 2000 American presidential elections. Many especially in the Third World were smugly pontificating and poking fun at America. One Malaysian minister presumptuously suggested that Malaysia should send election observers to America!

Fauziah, to her credit, was able to draw some valuable lessons. "One thing I found interesting about the whole affair," she writes, "was the way Americans moved on with their lives after the matter was resolved."

She missed mentioning the fact that during the extended period of uncertainty there were no civil disturbances, no opposition leaders incarcerated, and no edgy military officers contemplating a coup. Life in America went on as usual, a point missed by the many carping critics in the Third World.

Fauziah reveals something about herself that I found disturbing. In recounting her previous tour of duty in war-torn Bosnia, she was critical of those young Bosnian girls wearing jeans and petting their dogs. To her, they were not Muslim enough!

I would have expected that her training as a diplomat would have included an appreciation if not the celebration of the differences in the various cultures. For her to pass judgment on those poor Bosnians is uncalled for. Besides, it is for Allah to decide whether they are good Muslims.

Crucial issues

There were many crucial bilateral issues that cropped up during her tenure. Unfortunately she devoted only a few cursory sentences to each of them. First was America's concern about human rights abuses, in particular the treatment of jailed ex-deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim. Since this was such a thorny issue (still is), I would have expected a much more detailed analysis and defence of the Malaysian position, and also an attempt at understanding the American perspective.

The second, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's visit to the White House, was also dismissed briefly. I would have loved to read her account of the intense behind the scene lobbying to secure that invitation, and her take on the encounters between these two leaders, their body language, and the issues discussed.

My third disappointment is her treatment of economic and trade matters. Increasingly, foreign relations revolve around these important issues. Her cavalier attitude when attending important meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund is reflective of the generally low level of economic literacy and expertise among Malaysian diplomats.

What is discussed at such meetings are not "Yadda, yadda, yadda!" nor are they "words that did not have any meaning passing my ears." On the contrary, their deliberations directly impact Malaysia. It should be the business of Malaysian diplomats to understand that language and follow closely those deliberations.

I wish more Malaysians, especially those in the Foreign Service, would read her book. Unfortunately this is unlikely to happen as it is priced beyond the local market. She should find a Malaysian publisher so the final product would be more affordable.

Fauziah has since been promoted High Commissioner to Fiji. There are no substantive bilateral issues affecting the two countries. Thus I hope she will have time to write in greater length on her impressions of America for her Malaysian readers.