A Headmaster in Malaysia

Once, I wrote a story featuring a character named Malaysia. I don't remember her so well; I think she had something to do with an epidemic raging in New Mexico. I was going through a phase in which I thought I could describe landscapes. I've mostly given up since, but for the sake of argument: a long rim of palm trees, and clumps of tall apartment towers with open-air stairwells. That was my view on the train from Kuala Lumpur Airport to the city center.

A poster in the airport proudly noted that it was voted the best in the world in 2006 and 2005. This year, it took third to Seoul Incheon and Hong Kong. Notably, I started in Seoul this morning and connected in Hong Kong, thus apparently completing the "Top Airport Trifecta." All three are very well-lit, with wide open spaces in which you could fit Air Force One or the entire LAX international terminal.

It was an uneventful journey, unless you count my carry-on tumbling down an escalator into a woman in a veil. (I think she forgave me. I hope so.) On my second flight, I sat next to a Texan who chatted with me industriously before switching his attention to a movie about a haunted hotel room. Where are you from? he asked me at one point, a question my friend Tracy can certify I'm increasingly not very good at answering.

In other developments, DemiDec opened a school in Seoul this week. Yes, it puzzles me too.

This is a good moment to look back at how I ended up in Korea in the first place: one Randy Xu, now in China hedging funds, an agent of chaos who led his Decathlon team to a third place finish in Texas in 2000. Randy had a car accident that led him to need a lawyer that led him to e-mail the Harvard alumni list that led me to e-mail him a reference that led him to recognize my DemiDec connection that led him to work with DemiDec. A few months later he suggested that we go teach in Korea for three weeks as a kind of vacation.

It's been a very interesting three weeks.