Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader (78 page)

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Authors: Geremie Barme

Tags: #History, #Asia, #China, #Literary Criticism, #Asian, #Chinese, #Political Science, #Political Ideologies, #Communism; Post-Communism & Socialism, #World, #General, #test

BOOK: Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader
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Approaching Mao ZedongA Foreigner and His Contact with the Leader of New China,
Jiang Jiannong and Cao Zhiwei, Beijing
Reverberations: A New Translation of the Complete Poems of Mao Zedong,
Mao Zedong, Hong Kong
Mao Returns to Mankind,
Quan Yanchi, Guangdong
Note
1. For further bibliographical material related to 1980s and 1990s' Mao books, see Scharping, "The Man, the Myth, the Message," p. 168, n. 1.

 

Page 248
In the Footsteps of the Great:
Beijing Evening News
Revolutionary tourism has been common in China since the founding of the People's Republic and in particular since the Cultural Revolution, when Red Guards roamed the country in search of the political highlights of Party history.
The following article from the
Beijing Evening News,
the leading evening newspaper in the Chinese capital, appeared shortly before Mao's centenary. It introduces one of the methods being used by some schools to inculcate a love of the Chairman among his prepubescent revolutionary successors.
One afternoon recently, some seven hundred students of the Xiaomachang Primary School in Xuanwu District [central Beijing] engaged in an unusual educational exercise. As part of their commemoration of the centenary of Chairman Mao Zedong's birth, they went in search of Mao Zedong's footsteps in Xuanwu District.
According to various studies, Xuanwu District is the area in which Chairman Mao spent a lot of time both working and as a resident [in his youth]. In order to encourage the students to be more aware of the Older Generation of Proletarian Revolutionaries, the school enlisted the services of Wang Kechang, a teacher who has been awarded a government citation as an outstanding district tutor in Party history.
Utilizing relevant visual materials, Teacher Wang informed the students that Mao Zedong had attended the wake for Yang Huaizhong, the father of [Mao's wife] Yang Kaihui, at the Fayuan Temple. At the Hunan Provincial Association Hall in Lanman Alley Mao Zedong organized a meeting of some one thousand people to denounce the warlord Zhang Jingyao. Mao Zedong made dumplings with his teacher Li Jinxi at Li's home in the Second Street of Xiangluying. . . .
When Wang had finished his lecture the students went by bus to the

 

Page 249
Second Street of Xiangluying, the Open-Air Stadium at the Altar of Agriculture, the Taoran Pavilion, and three other spots to see for themselves where Chairman Mao had lived and worked.
To think that all this had happened around them and they were not even aware of it! Hearing all of these little-known but deeply moving stories, the primary school students recorded the information in various ways. Some used notebooks, others utilized tape recorders to capture the grand and glorious image of Chairman Mao that appeared before them. One sixth grader said: "My family used to live in Weiran Alley outside Xuanwu Gate. Not even my father knew that the pen factory that is there now was originally the headquarters of the famous newspaper
Jingbao.
Let alone did he know that Chairman Mao lived there!"

 

Page 250
Praise be to Mao:
Various Hands
In March 1993,
Zhongliu,
an unabashedly pro-Mao monthly established after 4 June 1989, announced a poetry competition sponsored jointly with the "Three Star Industrial Group" as part of its commemoration of the Mao centenary. The "Three Star Cup" and various monetary prizes were awarded to poems that most successfully "sang the praises of Comrade Mao Zedong and Mao Thought, glorified patriotism, socialism, and the collective spirit and hailed the Chinese revolution and construction.''
1
In May 1993, on the anniversary of Mao's "Yan'an Talks on Literature and Art," speeches he made in 1942 that subsequently formed the basis of Party cultural policy, a special issue of
Zhongliu
featured the first entrants in the competition. Subsequent issues of the journal printed dozens more. The following is a small sampling of this awesome body of poetry. "Mao Zedong, electrician
extraordinaire"
and "Mao Anqing" were both prize-winning entries.
2
Mao Zedong, Electrician
Extraordinaire
Da Wei
The Long March, 25,000 
li,
was a mighty electrical cable
Mao Zedong, crouching in the smoke of battle
studied a field map while gunfire sounded all around
That red pen in his hand moved swiftly and
shot out a powerful current
that cut through the darkness of China
In the dim light
Mao Zedong stood on the Pagoda Hill [in Yan'an]

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