Word: mao
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When I first traveled to China in the late 1970s as a student and then a foreign correspondent, the Chinese were giddily beginning to explore the new boundaries of freedom after Mao Zedong's death. There was a propaganda onslaught against the Gang of Four--the quartet (including Mao's wife Jiang Qing) that was blamed for the Cultural Revolution, the decade of terror that Mao had unleashed and then nourished. Mao didn't count among the fiendish four, but when the plucky Chinese I encountered talked of the Gang, they would hold up five fingers, then fold the thumb...
Nearly three decades later, China's people are still struggling over how to process Mao's legacy. The Communist Party continues to protect his memory; his mug still dominates Tiananmen Square in Beijing. And while the Chinese generally acknowledge his brutality, most seem to cherish his image as founder of the nation, who overturned centuries of humiliation at the hands of foreign powers. Of course, America's Founding Father heroes have warts of their own. (George Washington was imperious; John Adams was a grouch; Thomas Jefferson had that affair.) But as recent biographies have made apparent, Mao was not merely...
When Richard Nixon flew into Beijing on the morning of February 21, 1972, Mao Zedong was so thrilled, he wanted the U.S. President to come straight from the airport to meet him. Mao had been seriously ill for weeks: resuscitation equipment was hidden behind potted plants in his residence in case he collapsed during the meeting. The Chairman was fitted with a new Mao suit to conceal edematous bloating. That morning he had his first haircut in five months...
...Nixon was allowed to go from the airport to a guest bungalow, and to lunch with Premier Zhou Enlai. But then he was whisked to meet Mao, and the history books describe a meeting of civilizations that was as weird and awkward as it was historic. Mao and Zhou wanted to discuss the recent coup attempt by Lin Biao, Mao's chosen successor; Nixon didn't seem to understand them. He and Henry Kissinger flattered the Chairman. When Kissinger referred to Mao as a "professional philosopher," Mao laughed and asked, "He is a doctor of philosophy?" Nixon's reply...
...after 16 hours in the field each day, Dong stole away at night with a kerosene lamp to pore over two math and physics books his father had salvaged for him. Eventually the authorities caught on to Dong's reading, but since he disguised his books to resemble Mao's Little Red Book, they praised his party fervor. That reputation gave him the rare chance to attend college, leave the fields and then leave China. "If you go through that," he says, "nothing else is difficult." Well, almost nothing. Dong was introduced to welding as a student at Harbin Institute...