WHEN I tore off a sheet from the wall calendar Sunday morning and looked at it, my casual glance became a fixed gaze and I exclaimed to myself, "Ah, October 10! So today is the Double Ten Festival. And yet nothing is marked here!"
Hearing this observation, N, a senior of mine who happened to be calling, said to me in a displeased tone:
"They are right. Yes, they have forgotten the national holiday, but what of it? You happen to have remembered, but again what of it?"
This N was of a perverse temperament; he would get wrought up over things that did not matter and say things that embarrassed people. At such times I usually let him mumble on without putting in a word.
He continued: "I am most amused by the way they celebrate the Double Ten here in Peking. In the morning a policeman knocks on the door and says, 'Hang up the flag!' and you hear the reply, 'Yes, officer, we'll hang up the flag.' A citizen of the Republic emerges from the gate and perfunctorily hangs up a piece of cotton cloth with faded colors. In the evening it is taken down and the gate shut. Sometimes the flag is forgotten and left there until the next morning.
"It is true that they have forgotten to celebrate the national holiday; there is in fact very little for them to celebrate. I, for one, try not to remember, for to remember is to be
