LUDIC LOG

Dearest Mother,

No doubt you have noted by their absence the many letters I have written to you since leaving for college. Would that I could blame it on the unreliability of the mails in this province, or my extraordinarily busy class schedule, or on the dynamism of my social life. In truth, though, it is none of those things. In truth it has taken me this long to compose a letter in which I have sufficient rein over my anger and disappointment to express the appropriately respectful degree of humility, calm and reason.

Yes, I say 'anger' and 'disappointment'. At whom are these unseemly emotions directed? Oh, how I wish I could say it were myself! How dearly I wish it was a mere matter of academic failure or the ennui which I am led to believe often overtakes a student in his first semester at university. But I am afraid that they are at least partially directed at you.

I would like to think that this was all an innocent mix-up, or that perhaps you were decieved. Due to our country's strict enforcement of family size, I recognize that you want only the best for your only child, and perhaps you let yourself be dazzled by the smooth talk of the monks who operate this institution. After all, our small town of Jingxiao is remote and little-known; I was unlikely to attract the attention of a prestigious institution such as the University of Beijing (let alone a Harvard or an Oxford), no matter how sterling my grades. Perhaps you met with the representatives of this so-called "Shorinji College", and they spilt honeyed words that addled your good sense. This would be the charitable interpretation of how I came to be here, and would certainly cast you and Father in a more benign light.

However, I have my reasons to doubt that this is the case. I have not lived these eighteen years ignorant of your scorn. I know full well the weight of your disappointment in me. What am I to say? I am my own man, yes, but I am also just as you raised me. Perhaps you are right to be chagrinned at my lack of interest in physical pursuits. Perhaps I might have been a good foot-ball player. Perhaps I did inherit Father's admittedly impressive skills at ping pong. But the fact is that I have grown into someone who enjoys pre-15th-century English literature, who enjoys parsing the epic poem, whose great dream in life is to be a medievalist. Is that such a crime? For this sin of harboring goals at variance with your own, I am to be shipped away under cover of darkness and deceit to this hellish gymnasium posing as an institution of higher learning?

Yes, I say 'posing', for a pose is what it is. This is not in fact a university at all, but rather a Buddhist temple operated by a gaggle of deranged monks who are obsessed with physical fitness. Trusting, naive fool that I was -- O memory of the young innocent who answered to the name Kwai Lung only three months past! -- I trusted you when you told me that this was one of the most respected centers of learning in the region; I trusted the four-color brochure which I now realize was jury-rigged at the copy shop at the base of this high mountain to which you have exiled me. My 'education' consists of very little reading of books and studying of mythopoetic forms, and very much hopping around on floating barrels while being berated by an overweight maniac. My initial joy in discovering that only thirty-six credit hours were required for graduation was considerably dampened when it became clear that when the monks say 'credit hours', they are in fact referring to a series of chambers in which various physical tortures are inflicted upon myself and the other students.

My disillusionment started early. After the inspiring lecture Father gave about wishing for me to heed the monks well because he wished for me to have a proper religious education, I was truly inspired and humble, and wished to do him proud. You can thus imagine my surprise when the 'religious education' consists of strapping knives to my elbows and carrying around full buckets of water for two hours a day. You asked me in your letter of the 14th which is my favorit professor; I would have to say that it is a toss-up between Master Han, who only strikes me with a cane when I fail to walk across rice paper without tearing it, and Master Ang, who is very old and sometimes misses when he throws large rocks at me while I stand there blindfolded. I prefer these two because they do not use knives.

Needless to say, the course catalog with which I was presented proved entirely bogus. It is not even so much the deceit that bothers me as it is the fact that I actually sat around our home for hours, filling out paperwork and agonizing over whether I should take "Epic and Empire: Ancient and Modern Epic Poetry" or "Imaginary Crimes and Courts: The Law and Literature", when both classes, in reality, consist of ducking my hands in and out of a heated cauldron stuffed with gravel.

But now is not the time for recriminations and blame. Now is the time to say hello, I am doing well, I love you, and all those other banal platitudes I once gave credence. As to your request, I shall not be coming home any time soon to do laundry or ask for money; I am allowed only one uniform here at Shorinji, and it gets washed well enough during the hour and a half per day I spend standing under a waterfall. Also, there is no place to spend money, since we are located halfway up a mountain. Now I am afraid I must sign off, as I have much studying to do for my big final tomorrow in Taking-a-Running-Head-First-Leap-at-a-Dangling-Burlap-Sack-Filled-with-Sand class.

Your easily duped son,

Kwai Lung