Word: mao
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...would not be fair to compare Mao Zedong to either President Bush or President Obama. Neither has swum the Yangtze River and neither was a rabid communist. Mao created the central government system that is currently being dismantled. Bush and Obama may be remembered by historians as the American leaders who centralized much of the financial and industrial portions of the U.S. economy...
...book tells the story of two siblings' struggles through the turmoil of the Mao era and the country's transformation under Deng Xiaoping. The coarse, shameless Baldy and his handsome, trustworthy stepbrother Song Gang grow up poor during the Cultural Revolution. They watch as their father is persecuted to death and their mother debilitated with grief. They are orphaned as teenagers and a battle for survival bonds the boys together. But once China adopts capitalism in the 1980s, their paths diverge. The wily Baldy becomes an entrepreneur; Song Gang languishes as a worker in a state-owned factory...
...amid all the memorials there are surprisingly few details about some of the most pivotal periods of Mao's life. The museum focuses on the early days of the Communist Party, the Long March, resistance against the Japanese and the defeat of the Nationalists. As might be expected in a country whose founding father's image is rigorously managed, there is little mention of the disastrous Great Leap Forward, a period of forced collectivization that led to famine and the deaths of millions, or the Cultural Revolution and the persecution of millions more labeled as counterrevolutionaries...
...Luckily, one doesn't have to travel far from Shaoshan and its blaring patriotic songs and armies of hawkers to find a more nuanced and interesting look at modern China. The birthplace of Liu Shaoqi, another communist leader and Mao's contemporary, lies an hour's drive from Shaoshan in Ningxiang county. Liu's memorial is quiet and forested. Once you pass through the entry gates there are no touts or trinket stands, and noticeably fewer visitors. Liu was known as a practical, down-to-earth official. During an inspection tour of the region in 1961, he learned...
...role during that turbulent era is detailed at the museum in his village. During a recent visit, I saw a man bow his head before a Liu memorial, showing the sort of genuine reverence that's wasn't apparent in Mao's hometown. As I walked through the museum, a tour guide announced that his statue was supposedly gazing toward the bronze of Mao some 30 miles (50 km) away. But as to what Liu was thinking, she didn't venture a guess...