THE first day of the post Deng era was business as usual on the world's biggest public quadrangle in the heart of Beijing yesterday. Children flew kites, workers took gown New Year lanterns, country people snapped Chairman Mao's portrait, tourists gazed at the electronic clock counting down the return of Hong Kong, and plain clothes police slouched around, trying to look inconspicuous.
Men in leather coats came up to western reporters and told them cot to do any interviews. "This is a sensitive day in a sensitive place," an official told an American radio reporter.
But there were few signs of anything out of the ordinary, apart from the big, red Chinese flag flying at half mast in the centre of the square and knots of people buying late editions of the state newspapers.
At one point, the guardians of stability at the site of the pro democracy revolt in 1989 whipped out their walkie talkie radios as dozens of people congregated at one place, but found they were drawn by the sight of an immensely tall German television reporter doing a "stand up".
A few minutes later I saw a middle aged man with white hair clutching a placard which said - "Grandpa Deng, we cherish you", being marched into the Forbidden City by a uniformed officer, presumably because his lone demonstration was not authorised.
The day's official slogan, shown on television screens, stated: "Comrade Deng's memory will live forever." This was decreed by the Communist Party, which paid its respects to the paramount leader by awarding him five "greats" - great Marxist, proletarian revolutionary, statesman, military strategist and diplomat - three more greats than his predecessor, Chairman Mao Zedong, received.
There were no outpourings of grief yesterday, as there were when Mao died in 1976 and people felt their world had come to an end. Deng never encouraged the cult of personality. He had not been seen for three years. He had ceased running the country. He was 92. "Old people have to die sometime, it's not that tragic," a student said.
The first reaction of millions of Chinese yesterday as they woke to the news was typified by the taxi driver in Shenzhea, near Hong Kong, who told a reporter everything was normal except "passengers were very busy at their mobile phones discussing markets", adding: "When I heard on the radio of Deng's death, I almost jumped out of my seat worrying about my stocks."
On the fledgling Chinese money markets in Shanghra and Shenzhen, the cities which Deng made the catalyst of economic reform, it was also business as usual. Share prices dropped at the news of his death but quickly recovered, a tribute to the stability of the country and the widespread belief that Deng's full speed ahead reform programme would continue.
The Chinese business community remembered Deng yesterday as the man who promoted capitalism by proclaiming that "to get rich is glorious". The country's millions of peasants recalled him as the leader who gave them back their farms. Those whose hopes of democracy he crushed were not to be found making any comments.
"Most of the 1989 people are too, busy making a living to give, him much thought," a young professional man said in Beijing.
The nation will he mourning for five days. Deng's state funeral takes place on Tuesday. His cornea will be donated, parts of his body will be used for medical research and the remains will be cremated. Unlike Chairman Mao, who lies preserved in a mausoleum in Tiananmen Square, the ashes of the century's last great revolutionary will be scattered at seal according to his wishes.