INFLUENTIAL WRITER'S WORK LIVES LONG IN MEMORY

Range of activities mark 120th anniversary of Lao She's birth

"I am a nobody in literary and art circles. For decades, I have been conscientiously writing at my table. I am proud of my diligence. ... I hope that the day I am buried, someone will put up an engraved monument, saying, 'The nobody of literary and art circles, who has fulfilled his duty, sleeps here.'"

These words, from the writer Lao She, hang on a gray wall outside the Lao She Memorial Hall, a tranquil courtyard in Beijing.