Lie

The senior naval officer remained silent for a while, and, then, rather suddenly, he shook his head and said, "My friend, you seem very much against our Elite Program. What's the problem?"

The seasoned soldier was mute. He tried to convince himself the question of his classmate was meant for seeking an answer rather than being a personal accusation. For a moment he felt fortunate to be living in a democratic country with some freedom of expressing his opinion, and not Siberia or its south. Nonetheless, he found it a good idea not to challenge the friendship with his classmate any further, and no response was the best response.

His friend seemed to understand and decided to answer on his behalf, "I think I can understand your worry. You find it difficult to accept our promise to new students of this Program that they will become leaders and admirals after graduating from the Academy. We all know that's not true and actually impossible. All admirals come from the bottom rank; they have to work themselves up the hierarchy by their sweat and blood. There is no one-click fast track method. After all, it is the decision of the Department of Defense to appointment someone as an admiral, and, as the principal of the Naval Academy, I have no say on such a matter. Although we use the Program as a gadget to attract good students, we are giving them a false hope. As a good old honest soldier, you cannot accept our approach - you think we are lying!"

Alumna

The eyes of the principal appeared hollow. It seemed plain obvious that he did not know the difference between useful and interesting.

"I don't quite get what you mean," he said.

"What I mean is: Why should some students choose the Naval Academy and the others the West Point? There are a number of factors; many of them we can do nothing to change. One important factor that is modifiable, however, is the experience of their friends and alumna - or comments by word of mouth if you like. The key misconception is: Which alumna would a secondary school student ask an opinion?"

"Alas..." The naval officer was beginning to see what he friend was getting at.

"You see? It's not going to be the ones who have graduated from a military school 20 years ago and is now holding a prominent position in the Department of Defense. Since they are green, they will ask someone that they have a personal contact. Obviously it would be alumna who are one or two years more senior than they are - which means the first or second year military school students, who themselves have very little idea what is useful and what not. If they are enjoying and doing something interesting - or if they see some others jump the queue and they are wasting their time, they will certainly tell their junior schoolmates."

Slip

The principal was slightly taken aback by the comment of his friend.

'That's not fair!" He almost yelled, "We've been putting up so much effort to improve the program of year one!"

"Have you? From the point of view of an outsider, what the Naval Academy does is a Freudian slip of tongue - or slip of action, whatever - that you guys agree the first year in the Academy is entirely useless. I'm afraid even if your plan of attracting the handful of very top students is successful - and I have doubt on that - you can be sure for the rest of the boys that you recruit for your regular program will not be as good as the ones who joined the West Point. To them, their logic is simple: If they are not in that flimsy layer of creme de la creme de la creme, why should they waste one year - not to say the degree six years down the road may appear inferior."

"The year one program of the West Point isn't any better than ours." The naval officer murmured.

"That may be the case, but they do not come out and tell everyone that the first year of their program is dispensable. From what I could observe, the West Point is not trying to make their year one program useful, but, rather, they make it interesting. That makes a whole lot of profound difference."

Useless

"I must say I am slightly skeptical with the plan." The general appeared grim.

"Er...?" The naval officer was startled.

"Come on, my friend, I know what you're trying to do," the senior soldier tapped the shoulder of the principal, "Yes, those in the Elite Program would have a grandiose feeling - but what about all the other regular year one naval students?"

"Are you suggesting that they would be upset and feel inferior? That should not be a problem. The regular program is the same between our Academy and the West Point. After all, what we want to do is to give some pride and honor to a small group of high flying students, but not to demoralize the ordinary ones."

"No, what I mean is, in my opinion, the Elite Program is telling everyone - regular students, potential students, and the general public - that the first year of your regular program is entirely useless, and, therefore, could be do away with without affecting the subsequent naval study or the quality of the graduating officer!"

Extra

(The discussion between the army general and the principal of the Naval Academy continued.)

"Since you know our plan so well, what do you think about our plan of attracting high flying students?" The senior naval officer asked.

"I'm not sure I know it well enough," the general twisted his lips, "I hear everything through the grapevine and the arrangement seems to have changed so often that I have difficulty to convince myself the version I know is going to be the ultimate plan."

"Alas..." The principal blushed a little, "I'm sure the one you heard last week is the final version."

"In that case the one on the web site is not..." The soldier murmured. But, in no time, he realized he was not in the position to make such a comment. To divert the attention of his friend, he quickly cleared his throat and said, "Do you mean the Elite Program? I mean, under your new program, really good students will join the second year of the academy instead of the first; these students will still take six years to finish with the study, but, instead of doing the first year, they will have an extra year of special study after the regular curriculum so that they could make themselves booming admirals in the future. Is that right?"

The principal nodded eagerly.

Academy

Frequent visitors of this site may remember a series of interesting discussions between the army general and his cabinet secretary. (See http://ccszeto.blogspot.hk/2012/05/colonel.html, http://ccszeto.blogspot.hk/2011/03/hour.html, and so forth.) Recently, the army general met a classmate of his, who was newly appointed as the principal of the Naval Academy.

"My friend, how's everything going?" The general asked.

"What a nicely put question!" The senior naval officer sighed, "That's exactly the problem: Everything is going in its own direction and it is impossible to make them cooperate or cohesive!"

"I hear that the Naval Academy is going to start a new program to train up budding captains and admirals..." The soldier suggested.

"Quite right. I suppose you are sharp enough to see through what we're trying to do?"

"Oh, yes, of course. It is absolutely necessary to put up new gadgets to attract new naval officers to your Academy. If not, why don't they aim for the army and join the West Point - which has a longer history and is a better established institute?"

杜鵑

Why should I choose this phrase?

To begin with, it is the pen-name I actually plan to use in case I have to write anything outside medicine.

No, I'm not primarily referring to rhododendron (杜鵑花), the flower, which certainly has a special meaning to graduates of my university - it is the symbol of examination. (I decided to use this name long before I took up the arrangement of examination in 1996.)

It is cuckoo (杜鵑鳥), the bird, that is in my mind.

杜鵑，望帝春心所托。

Go read Li Shangyin (李商隱).

PS. I come to realize some years later that Kafka, in Czech, means western jackdaw (寒鴉).

What an honor to be in the same class.