At the base of the abundantly green Mount Shaofeng, is Shaoshan village — the birthplace of Mao Zedong, where Red tourism thrives, channelling ideological fervour into a commercial success story.
On any given day, long queues meander towards the ticket windows, the first stop leading to a traditional home of modest peasant affluence, where Mao was born, and spent his early years. Mao’s ancestral home has become a site for official pilgrimage. Seven year after the Great Helmsman’s death, Mao’s successor, Deng Xiao Ping, placed a wooden plaque at the entrance of the house. It simply read: “Comrade Mao Zedong’s former residence.”
Today, with the plaque in frame, visitors use their camera phones to capture, arguably the most important site, within the sprawling complex of buildings and open spaces to honour Chairman Mao. Chairman Mao is the reverential and popular title that has been given to the founder of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
His parents are buried nearby
Mao’s ancestral residence comprises 13 rooms. The concave shaped structure, built in traditional Tam Chai style, has family photographs, including those of Mao’s parents. Mao’s father, Mao Yichang, and mother, Wen Qimei, are buried at a nearby hillock, which in itself has become an open air memorial, where visitors make generous offerings of bouquets and flowers.
Mao’s residence also demonstrates the family’s peasant lifestyle, manifested, for instance, in the presence of a storehouse, which is stocked with farm implements, such as hoes, shoulder poles and buckets.
Not far from the house, a giant bronze statue of Mao, is also a big draw. The iconic structure rises to an impressive height to 10.1 meters. At its base, thousands everyday throng to offer flowers and solemnly pay their respects. Stone engravings bearing Mao’s poems that line the vast parameter around the statue, sharpens the focus on China’s revolutionary roots.
Rewind to Cultural Revolution
At the square, Mao’s excesses during the Cultural Revolution of the sixties and seventies, and the preceding Great Leap forward, when millions died, are largely forgotten, or overwhelmed by his perceived achievements. “Without Mao, we would not have got our freedom. He laid the foundations of our modern nation,” says Bang Shein Liu, a regular visitor to Shaoshan.
A visit to the Mao Zedong Memorial Museum, visible from the statue area, is also part of the time-machine, which enlivens the Maoist-era that continues to resonate powerfully in contemporary China, during the Presidency of Xi Jinping.
In close proximity is also the famous Mao Zedong Library — a vast collection of 1,20,000 items, including the newspapers and journals that the former leader read, his various manuscripts, well-known pamphlets, and monographs of his distilled thoughts.
In tune with Maoist China’s evolution, Building No.1 at what is called Water Dripping Cave in the Shaoshan complex offers a fascinating peek into the Chairman’s mind, especially his concerns regarding the physical survival of the Chinese leadership in case of a nuclear attack or a devastating natural calamity. The presence of an earthquake proof room, as well as an atomic shelter inside the building, demonstrates Mao’s fixation with extreme survivability.
Deep security consciousness
“A deep security consciousness is part of the Chinese political culture. It can be seen in the form of the Great Wall, or in Mao’s nuclear shelter,” says a Communist Party official, who did not wish to be named.
Mao’s heritage has emerged as a major money-spinner among the locals. It is estimated that one time, before Mr. Xi’s recent austerity measures kicked in, annual sales of Mao’s carry-away bronze statues — an ideal gift in official circles — had scaled several million dollars.
A restaurant chain of over 400 eateries across China is also attributed to Shaoshan. Tang Ruiren, the octogenarian owner of the enterprise, has been quoted as saying that a picture with Chairman Mao when he visited her home during a 1959 trip to Shaoshan triggered the idea of starting the restaurant business. Years later, that photograph became the icon of “Mao Family,” her restaurant chain, which continues to rake in a considerable fortune.
