I'm bored don't answer for the free points :( :( :(

the primary theme of ha jin's “a decade” would be the need to revisit one's past to determine a path for the future. “a decade” is one of the twelve brief stories of ha jin's under the red flag, which takes place during the cultural revolution of china.

the narrator is a first person, participant one, who describes in the simple past tense important and difficult events in his earlier life. he also provides temporal markers as the month (january) and the time (12: 30 pm). finally the account of his experience is very detailed, to the extent that a participant narrator would talk the same way about his experiences. a good example of such detail is the mention of the “bovril ration” which historically was a native american food adopted by european explorers in arctic and antarctic regions due to its high level of calories.