Class Notes - November 3, 1999
Class notes features
From the Archives
Though Princeton still has a Reserve Officers Training Corps program,
students may go through their entire four years at Princeton without glimpsing
a scene like this one, even in the month of Veterans Day. Here Major General
Lawrence C. Jayne, commanding general of the New Jersey-Delaware Military
District, reviews the Princeton ROTC unit in its first full-dress review
after World War II. Headed by Cadet Major Robert L. Kress '49, the 160 Field
Artillery trainees caused General Jaynes to comment that he was "especially
impressed by the alertness, personal appearance, and marching ability of
Princeton's reservists." Accompanying the visiting general on his inspection
was Dean of the Faculty J. Douglas Brown '19.
Tracking hot-button issues abroad
Political officer Don Lu '88 *91 learns from other cultures
As a political officer in the American Embassy in New Delhi, India,
Don Lu '88 *91 follows hot-button issues such as the nuclear race between
India and neighboring Pakistan or relations with China and Tibet. He collects
information from government officials, academics, and diplomats and writes
reports to send to the home office in Washington, D.C.
"It's very academic," he explains over a lunch of Vietnamese
pho soup, lime soda, and apple pie à la mode in the embassy restaurant.
"It's a very interesting time to be in India. We have a lot of people
reading what we write now."
Lu earned his undergraduate degree in international affairs at the Woodrow
Wilson School. After a stint in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone, he returned
to the Wilson School to earn a master's degree in public policy.
Two State Department officers who were attending the school as midcareer
fellows inspired Lu to apply to the foreign service, the first and only
job he sought after he graduated. The ability to keep learning about other
cultures was clearly an attraction. Before his first posting in Pakistan,
Lu studied Urdu, which is very similar to the spoken Hindi used in India.
A few years later, he studied Georgian for a posting in the former Soviet
Union.
"People just cannot believe this Chinese guy speaks Georgian,"
he says, recalling the shock he inspired when he spoke to people there in
their native tongue.
Lu met his wife, Ariel, an American development worker, while in Pakistan.
She now directs a mother-and-child health project of Catholic Services,
traveling throughout India. Because Ariel works in development, "in
a way we're condemned to traveling in the developing world," he says,
without audible regret.
In fact, Pakistan, Georgia, and India were all first choices for Lu,
although the service considers them hardship posts because of pollution
and security concerns. Modest about winning his choice of post, Lu says,
"I think if I wanted to go to Paris it would be a little more difficult
to compete."
He lives comfortably on his foreign-service salary, and hasn't seen the
worst of the unrest in the countries he's visited. "Most places have
been quiet while we were there," he says. "Our timing has been
good."
During his first nine months in India, Lu served as assistant to the
ambassador, Frank G. Wisner '61, who wore his Ivy Club tie around the embassy
and who retired in 1997.
After becoming a political officer, Lu spent a year reporting on Indian
foreign policy toward Russia, China, and Iran. He now focuses on Kashmir,
Indo-Pakistani relations, Indo-Chinese relations, and Tibet, always with
an eye out for threats to global security.
Lu and his wife expect to stay in India for another year and a half before
returning to the United States for a two-year posting in Washington, D.C.
A California native who had never left the continent until his Peace Corps
years in West Africa, Lu now wants to spend most of his life abroad. He
hopes to work in Afghanistan, Iran, and central Asia in the future.
"You get the bug when you go overseas," he says. "Just
going down the street to buy some eggs, you never know what's going to happen,
or in which language you're going to be addressed."
-Heather Stephenson '90
Heather Stephenson is a freelance writer in Vermont.
Frequent Circus Flyer
Sam Keen *62 uses trapeze artistry to help others overcome fear
Hup!"
That's the cue. Sixty-seven-year-old Sam Keen *62, swinging upside-down
and backwards on a trapeze far above the ground, arcs upward and grabs the
wrists of the frightened young woman swinging toward him. The timing is
perfect. Miraculously, and to the cheers of the onlookers below, the aerial
rendezvous is a success.
Keen always suspected he was destined for another kind of life, one
different from his role as professor, philosopher, and author of 13 books.
"I have a completely unverifiable feeling that something in my DNA
has destined me to become a butterfly," he quips.
He's on his way to proving this thesis. Six years ago, after his Fire
in the Belly had made him a national bestselling author and a leader in
the men's movement, Keen fulfilled a lifelong yen for the circus-specifically,
for the trapeze, "the crown jewel of circus arts." Or "flying,"
as he more frequently terms it.
His recent book, Learning to Fly: Trapeze-Reflections on Fear, Trust,
and the Joy of Letting Go (Broadway Books, 1999) "is not about the
trapeze, it's about soaring," he says. It describes the joys, thrills,
perils-and yes, the panic-of floating through the air with the greatest
of ease.
The panic is part of the point: "Up here, you get a chance to test
your courage and your fear," he says, adding that "connoisseurs
of fear" learn to use fear as a delicate psychological barometer, informing
them when to push forward and when to ease up. They learn not to be afraid
of their fear.
Keen's hobby became a passion. Now he has "a standard-size circus
rig" on his 60-acre ranch. Keen uses flying as therapy (and charity)
to help people confront their fears and their lives. As a result, Eritrean
children, Hispanic gangs, drug addicts, abused women, and others discover
the joy of flying nestled among the idyllic vineyards and cliffs in California's
picturesque wine country.
"We hope to infect them with joy. We hope to infect them with our
passion," says Keen.
The proportions are deceiving from the ground: the long vertical length
of net-70 feet of it-makes the vertical 32-foot ladder leading to the platform
and trapeze look-well, manageable. But it's the equivalent of leaping from
the roof of a three-story building.
"Sometimes you have to wrestle people to the ground to get them
to try it," says Keen. (A formidable prospect indeed: Keen was on Princeton's
wrestling team.)
It may appear to be a far cry from Keen's work at Princeton, where he
took a Ph.D. in the philosophy of religion, and Harvard Divinity School,
where he earned a bachelor's and master's degree and studied with theologian
Paul Tillich.
But Keen says the move is not as far-flung as it might appear-for him,
the trapeze is a spiritual discipline, the equivalent of daily prayer or
meditation to cleanse the doors of perception.
Or, more metaphorically, "There's nothing like the prospect of getting
shot in the morning to clear your mind," he says.
-Cynthia Haven
Cynthia Haven is a freelance writer living in California.
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