No Political Significance

From Chungking TIME Correspondent Annalee Jacoby reported:

Today in Chungking eggs stood on end. At exactly 1 o'clock of the 22nd day of this year's last month (reckoned by the Chinese lunar calendar) winter ends. Every such calendar has this day plainly marked. It says: "Eggs will stand upon their ends." Improbable though it seems, so they did. The Press Hostel compound was dotted with eggs foolishly, standing on end. Which end seemed to be of little concern to the eggs; they were erect on either their small ends or their large ends, and sometimes they even showed off by holding a leaning-tower stance.

Tradition says that eggs must stand on the earth. And so they did, while the same eggs, carried to a wooden floor, toppled as any normal eggs should. Tradition also says that eggs will stand best at 1 o'clock. So they did. There was no sign of winter's end, yet at 1 o'clock any eggs set carelessly on the ground performed with brilliance. By two they took a bit of balancing.

Since correspondents should be thorough, we searched for the why & wherefore of this unseemly phenomenon. Perhaps, we said, these are no ordinary eggs. But tomorrow morning's breakfast egg produced by our unsuspecting cook was as disturbingly vertical. We shall not feel quite the same after that breakfast. We asked if hens are fed different food, perhaps BB shot, at this time of year? There was no evidence. Bizarre theories, having to do with the moon's pull, were frowned upon. Even Jimmy Wei, sprightly sage of the Ministry of Information, had no information. "Why try to explain in one day," he asked practically, " what has not been explained in four thousand years?"

Since this seems reasonable, I have only this to report: eggs stood on end in Chungking today. All agree that there is no political significance.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.