UCHING, Malaysia -- Donald Jagau embraces me in the lobby and almost immediately lets loose with his worries. "How bad is Silicon Valley's slowdown?" he wants to know. "How long will it last? And how much worse will it get?"

Donald associates me with the high-technology cluster in northern California. We met there, so even though I now live in London, in his mind I am an emissary from high-tech heaven. And heaven, he knows, is hurting.

Donald, 34 years old, is a trainer in a factory here. He is an employee of Sanmina Corp., a San Jose company that makes printed circuit boards, the guts of mobile phones and laptops. As demand for these and other gadgets weakens, the activity in Donald's plant slows. He no longer gets overtime regularly, and last month his salary was cut by 20%.

A Dayak tribesman, the son of a subsistence rice farmer, Donald got his first job in high tech five years ago. Before that, he never had seen a computer. He had no phone in his house, or even electricity. As he cut down a tree one day in the hills above his village, he heard on his portable radio that an American company needed workers. He met the basic requirements -- a high school diploma and a basic knowledge of English -- so he applied, and won the job.

For years, Donald only knew boom times. Now his questions echo those of countless Americans who work in, or otherwise depend on the U.S.'s vast high-tech industry. When Silicon Valley gets ill, many other places do, too. Donald is a window to the way the tech slowdown works its way across the world.

I met him five years ago in California, where he was on an 11-month training assignment. He was toiling over a machine in a steaming "hot air" room, where boards are doused with chemicals and solder. After a series of promotions back in Malaysia, he now trains others in the arcane steps of keeping machines humming. He earns the equivalent of about $350 a month, without overtime.

Despite his good work record, he is vulnerable to a downturn because there is no other printed circuit-board maker in Kuching. While he earns more money than an ordinary Malaysian, he doesn't earn so much that he can readily save -- or pay for the move of his wife and four children across the South China Sea to the regional high-tech centers of Penang or Kuala Lumpur, where even now he could probably land a job.

Donald's best friend at the plant is Frank Lisu, a Dayak engineer who attended a university in the U.S. Because of his training, Mr. Lisu can have his pick of jobs, and he prods Donald to become more marketable by taking courses in management or engineering. Mr. Lisu tells Donald his best defense against a downturn is to expand his skills.

Donald doesn't take advice easily. He has all sorts of excuses for not attending school, though he is a good student and enjoys classes. Recently he delighted in attending a workshop dubbed "Train the Trainers," where he mastered a new manual for the factory's "lay-up and press" department. After years of working with English speakers, Donald's comprehension, at least of high-tech lingo, is dazzling. Consider this excerpt from his training manual: "Bending the prepreg should be avoided as it can cause cracks. A cracked sheet of prepreg will not flow properly and (causes) voids."

Donald lives with his family on the outskirts of Kuching in a three-room bungalow. No phone, no mail delivery and a rugged bathroom, but the price is right. Donald loves football and named his first two sons, Gary, 11, and Renato, 9, after professional football stars. He has a six-year-old daughter, Philipa. In December 1999, his wife Lucy gave birth to another son. I learned this from Mr. Lisu, who told me in early February of last year that the child was seriously ill.

A few days later, on Feb. 11, I heard from Donald himself. "How are you?" he asked, and then told me his newborn, Zachery Jagau, was having surgery in Kuala Lumpur Hospital for swelling in his brain. That is how Donald told me he had named his son after me.

For a time I worried that the baby would die. I spoke to Donald on the phone. I called a friend in Kuala Lumpur, a Malaysian journalist, and she inquired at the hospital about the baby's treatment. I still keep the infant's medical report in a folder on my desk, like a lucky charm.

In the end, it all came back to high tech's global romp. It is true that Donald's U.S. employer pays him only one-fifth or less of what an American counterpart would earn. But without the company's health-insurance plan, which paid Donald's medical bills, his son Zachery almost surely would have died.

The scare over his child's health sent Donald flying into action. The tech slump has him frightened, and perhaps that is what he needs to gain new skills and shed his complacency. I am optimistic for him.