Reminiscences of Campus Life:

A Humour Noir Episode

Gao Huan

June is approaching. My days in Fudan University won��t be long.

People tend to recollect the past in delirium on their deathbed. Memories appear fragmentary and bittersweet. The dying sentimentality is infinitely melancholy and breathtakingly beautiful.

However, I am neither indicating nor implying any affinity between dying people and graduating students. I can��t be held reliable for any unpleasant association on the part of the readers of this essay, since the reminiscences of college life are assumed to be black- humorous, neither infinitely melancholy nor breathtakingly beautiful. But does Gao Huan really find her four years in Fudan an experience of absurdity like that of Yossarian in Catch-22?

No �� Or perhaps to some degree yes?

In the first two years, we did morning and afternoon exercises to get stamped on a card. A certain number of such stamps every semester were necessary if we wanted to pass the P.E. course, let alone to get an A. I fully appreciated the importance of exercises to health. But because they primarily appeared as a must, I felt terribly bad for being tied down by such inflexible routine. I resented the compulsory exercises but still rigidly kept them. Fellow students frequently mentioned how they tricked to get away. It sounded so very inviting! But I dared not. I am actually extremely stern and scrupulous in morality and discipline. As seen from my past experience, I often got caught just when I joined the unruly majority and the rest of them essentially remained safe and sound. I really didn��t like history to repeat for me.

But the seduction of playing a little trick and getting a stamp in return worked on me somehow. It was a memorable afternoon when Siren trapped me. We ought to run around the playground twice but a friend and I hid somewhere for a while and only completed one round. As we reached for our cards with one more stamp added, the supervising P.E. teacher stopped us and asked, ��How much did you run? We have been watching you.�� I stared at her speechless. Then what followed was merely history acting out again. We were threatened that the cards would be taken away and logically we would fail in the P.E. course. This gloomy prospect really frightened me, who was a freshman not yet hardened by the miscellaneous practices in a university. Reading my ��self-criticism��, the teacher commented, ��Haven��t your middle-school teacher taught you how to write it? Where is the right format?��

The person most shocked was, however, the P.E. teacher who gave lessons to my class. She keenly felt that her face was lost to her colleagues. It was outrageous. While the head of the P.E. Department breezily pardoned me �� he probably had seen too much�� my teacher persisted in finding fault with me. I swallowed a lot of my pride to ask for her forgiveness. It took very long for her to feel that enough of her anger had been given vent to. Finally I got my score downgraded and my accomplice, whose teacher happened to be the head of the P.E. Department just got some mild admonition. Other students went on to play tricks and went on to get away. I never did it again.

The story was not over yet. Three mornings of every week, we ran to Xianghui Hall to get stamped. Our own teacher was often there. She would give students three stamps in her own class for the whole week on the first morning. She was considerate, ��You should sleep more and study harder.�� I was then fortunately able to sleep more and study harder than the students not in her class. I no longer felt so much against her. She must have found me a funny person who did quite well in the P.E. tests. She even smiled to me sometimes.

So when I initiated to play a trick, I got caught. When I cooperated in a trick, I got benefited. Such tricks should be just between you and me. We all know the whole thing is kind of silly. But if a third party discovers it, I can��t protect you and I must punish you severely. You really deserve it.

I paid a little and found this great paradox of life. I should count myself lucky to see this truth as early as in college. In addition to this, I have also begun to figure that a spell might have been cast on me. Why am I caught more often than others while I commit fewer offences? I don��t think I am particularly beautiful or ugly. If I am brazen enough to think that I have an invisible and unspeakable charm, this question can be answered. Then I should even rejoice in the notion that I am a different person. I played truant for very few times all through these four years. Someone said to me very sincerely, ��Some lectures are really empty. Why should you waste your time? You could have done something else more worth it.�� It is a very practical and good philosophy, which transcends the meaningless form of life. I do sometimes care little about form; I reject some of the silly affectation required for delicate girls. But I seldom played truant because even a teacher who never called the rolls would do it the very single time when I was not there. There is no other way but the spell-theory to explain this mysterious phenomenon. Everybody can do it just I can��t. If I do it, I get caught. I can��t play tricks if I don��t want something worse. This is my life. I tried to keep full attendance, but I didn��t really listened. I truly despise the form and I am a little disgusted with my incapability of transcending the form that cost me time and freedom. It seems I am hypocritical. In order to justify myself, I would interpret others�� transcendence in this respect as a happy irresponsibility. So in a word, I am past remedy.

My illusive awareness of a special spell on me and my limitation in transgression will keep me from any criminal attempts. (Crime is a satisfaction of the savage instincts in ourselves actually!) I would not break the law because I know if I did I would be caught invariably and punished severely. My college life has affirmed for me a life principle to stick to: Be well-behaved. This is the deepest impression I get as I reminisce of these four years.

I guess I am not in a dying delirium or a leaving sentimentality. I am just a little amazed that I can see through myself like this. I am a psychologist and philosopher for myself.

(1999)

Professor Wang Aiping's Comment: A

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