At this point in my experience with China, the sense of irony that comes with Mao Zedong's legacy has left me jaded. This week I have been traveling in Hunan Province, the birthplace of Mao as well as the location of the first communist refuge he organized against the Guomingdang in the late 1920s early 1930s. The landscape of Hunan is still marked by its rural identity, but throughout the sprawling hills and boggy rice fields can be found memorials to the province's bloody history. Yesterday I got the chance to visit Mao's birthplace in Shaoshan, a little known town outside the origins of its most infamous former resident. I would not suggest the place to anyone passing through unless you have an interest in Mao and Chinese Communist Party history. It's a very dull tour with bland scenery and a long and agonizing bus ride.
First I was taken to a museum of Mao's life, which pretty much includes a lot of photographs not placed in chronological order depicting the life and greatness of Chairman Mao. Then I was taken to a shop with everything Mao, Mao shirts, books, lighters, buttons, tea, and statues all incredibly overpriced. If that wasn't enough, the last exhibit includes a large statue of Mao that everyone is "asked" to bow to in appreciation for his efforts to improve the peoples' welfare.
After lunch we proceeded to Mao's birthplace, a small farm house that overlooked a pleasant pond. How much of it existed while Mao lived there I can't be for sure. Not too far from Mao's house is a gigantic bronze statue of the former great leader. A royal red carpet leads up to the structure, and every 5 minutes I witnessed another throng of Chinese tourists providing flowers to the bronze idol. Next to the statue was a commemorative hall that was designed to look like a typical Chinese temple, thus crystalizing Mao in an almost theological image for modern China. I was told that sometimes locals would light firecrackers in effort to bring back Mao's ghost from the dead. Also on the tour was the former residence of Liu Shao Qi, Mao's number two who came under scrutiny and imprisonment for revisionist ideas in the Cultural Revolution. He was also given a statue similar to Mao's.
What was striking about these places was not just the mythology yielded to the history that surrounded them but the total lack of tangible evidence that the legacy of Mao still matters in modern China. The area is littered with shopkeepers selling Mao souvenirs amongst other things such as ice cream , drinks, and plastic toys. As I walked to the bus form Liu Shao Qi's house, I was accosted by a crowd of merchants selling this crap. What would Mao think of this capitalist bastardization of his image? Perhaps he wouldn't mind so much. Besides being a narcissistic man, Mao's Cultural Revolution was a sort of marketing campaign for Mao as China's new and final savior. It came in the form of posters, hats, films, operas and of course little red books. It's no surprise that his image is still marketed today. It just seems out of place to have such capitalist activity run a muck throughout this Maoist acropolis.
But truth be told, Mao's image itself is a bit out of place in China. In Changsha, the provincial capital of Hunan, I noticed few if any images of Hunan's favorite son. While Mount Vernon is dominated by Washington and Mozart's face plasters the streets of Salzburg, Changsha was relatively Maoless. Perhaps it's simply due to a pragmatic assessment by the Chinese towards Mao's lack of validity in modern China. Chinese cities already have their austere CCP committee buildings, military facilities with the red star, and martyr's memorials and parks. Adding a Mao in every house just seems a bit excessive and retro.
When pondering Mao's place in modern China, I always think back to an image in Chengdu that burns in my memory. In the center of the city is a large stone Mao statue in the middle of a large public square. His arm is stretched forwards as if looking over his socialist kingdom much as Athena would to Athens or Lady Liberty to New York. However, instead of a socialist paradise, in front of him lay a massive boulevard with monuments dedicated to capitalism including resorts, banks, marketing firms, KFC and McDonalds. This image of irony to me brings forth Mao's true identity in modern China. A figurehead who is politically and historically important, but ideologically and culturally irrelevant.
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