CHINA: Red Flowers for Father

It was the time of Ching Ming, the Pure Brightness Festival. Throughout the land the Chinese people, obeying ancient precepts, dutifully swept and tidied the graves of their ancestors. At the foot of a pine-dotted mountain in remote Chungpu, Shensi province, such a grave was swept. This was the tradition-hallowed tomb of the greatest ancestor of all, Huang Ti (Yellow Emperor), legendary Father of the Chinese race.*

But last week it was a new broom, swung by ideologically irreverent hands, that cleared Huang Ti's hypothetical resting place. Communist General Peng Teh-huai's men, marching south from their Ichuan victory, had taken it....