A Breed Apart

Java master Bawan and a young monk in his charge were walking down a road, when they came upon an emissary of the Emperor.

After the usual greetings were exchanged, the emissary turned to Bawan and with disdain asked, “Why does your monk not groom himself according to the imperial edicts of professional attire? His face is unshaven, his footwear unforgiveably gaudy, and his robes are made of cheap cotton with a humorous slogan adorning the back. This is disrespectful to you in the extreme! Why do you tolerate it?”

In a haughty voice, Bawan replied, “This is not some lowly bead-pusher employed by a counting house, nor some tenth rank scribe in the Grand Bureaucracy! This is a monk of the Temple of the Morning Brass Gong, who practices the glorious arts of Java, C, and PHP; of Python and Perl; Bourne shell and Korn shell; SQL, JPL, XML, CSS3 and Javascript too. He can—with the merest flickering of his fingers on a keyboard—summon entire websites into existence, wherein horses and armor befitting the Emperor’s most august regiments may be purchased with two-day shipping guaranteed. He has demonstrated proficiency in both debugging and re-bugging: the yin and yang around which all blessed commerce revolves! He and his fellows cannot and will not be held to our generation’s trivial ideals of personal hygiene. The monks of his Temple are a breed apart!”

Thus chastened, the emissary bowed coldly and continued on his way.

When the fellow was out of earshot, the young monk smirked at Bawan, saying, “That emissary was most assuredly an idiot, to need such things explained to him in this day and age.”

Bawan cast an eye over the monk’s stubbled cheek and irreverent garments. Without warning the master swung his staff hard into the back of the monk’s skull, killing him on the spot.

“I, too, am a breed apart,” said Bawan thoughtfully.