Guy Hamilton, a neophyte foreign correspondent for an Australian network, arrives in Jakarta on assignment. He meets the close-knit members of the foreign correspondent community including journalists from the United Kingdom, the United States, and New Zealand, diplomatic personnel--and Billy Kwan, a Chinese-Australian dwarf of high intelligence and moral seriousness. Hamilton is initially unsuccessful because his predecessor, tired of life in Indonesia, had departed without introducing Hamilton to his contacts. He receives limited sympathy from the journalist community, which competes for scraps of information from Sukarno's government, the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI), and the conservative Muslim Indonesian National Armed Forces. However, Billy takes a liking to Guy and arranges interviews for him with key political figures.