Mao is the Latest Craze, 100 Years After His Birth

by Richard S. Ehrlich

"All men must die, but death can vary in its significance." -- Mao Zedong


KUNMING, China -- Mao is in!

Mao keychains, Mao calendars, Mao automobile ornaments, Mao posters and other cheap memorabilia of the chubby face of the late Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong, are suddenly everywhere.

Millions of drivers swear that colorful Mao decals protect their vehicles against collision.

Capitalist shopkeepers display Mao's communist face above their products to attract money.

And elderly, die-hard Maoists vow Mao will never go out of style.

Today, 100 years after his birth -- and 18 years after his death -- Mao lives on.

More than anyone, megalomaniac Mao personifies communism in China.

He presided over harrowing years which plunged this giant, impoverished nation into widespread slaughter and torture, obsessive behavior control, shrill propaganda displays, and destruction of much of China's major works of architecture, religion and culture.

China still staggers under Mao's terrible legacy.

Most of its one billion population remains confused and worried over what new political line they must obey, after long years of parroting Mao's palm-sized book of "quotations," -- also known as his "little red book" because of its cheap plastic, red cover.

The same bland portrait of Mao which adorns the first pages of that 1966 book -- a face made internationally famous by a larger-than-life portrait which hangs above Beijing's Tiananmen Square -- is now a hot seller among Chinese for reasons no one can really pinpoint.

Some people speculate the new Mao craze began as a hip protest against China's current leadership.

Anti-communist students were said to be satirizing the system by rejecting current icons, and instead pasting up one of communism's most brutal leaders -- while enjoying impunity because Mao is still officially in good graces.

Others reject that theory and say taxi, truck and bus drivers began the fad when rumors spread that someone, somewhere, emerged alive from a gruesome crash site only because his windshield had an old Mao sticker on it.

Many drivers now dangle Mao's portrait from the rearview mirror, allowing it to swing and twirl as they motor along.

Passengers rarely, if ever, complain.

Some Chinese said in interviews that Mao is popular because life was better under his rule -- and less corrupt -- when food, housing and work was guaranteed, even if it was often brutish.

Current capitalist reforms, which allow people to "get rich," have worsened the gap between the wealthy elite and the poor masses.

The government, meanwhile, may be orchestrating a revival of Mao's personality cult to remind a restive population about China's revolutionary roots, and warn everyone that Big Brother is still watching -- if not in reality, then at least in their collective imagination at unexpected places.

For example, at a amusement park here in Kunming city, two Chinese girls recently pasted up a big portrait of Mao and then sat down in front of it, armed with a microphone and speaker, so they could attract more attention while shouting to passersby to buy tickets to see a daredevil motorcycle show.

Several blocks away, modest clothing shops display the same portrait of Mao -- smaller but laminated -- on the wall above their jackets and dresses, or on the sleeves of prominently placed shirts, hoping Mao will lure crowds.

Some restaurants and offices hang a specially printed 1993 calendar, which marks the 100th anniversary of Mao's birth.

The calendar bears 12 different, rarely seen color photos of Mao.

They include July's gray-suited Mao, studying China's place on a huge wall map of the world.

August displays an aged Mao, minus some teeth, sitting next to a fellow communist alongside a white spittoon.

And a pudgy, grinning, December Mao stands alone in a green rice field while wearing a straw sunhat, tied with a big white string under his chin.

Also available are plastic keychains which show a tiny reprint of Mao's Tiananmen Square portrait on one side and, on the reverse, a tiny picture of a young Mao in uniform during his famous 1934 to 1935 "Long March" and guerrilla war against Kuomintang (KMT) forces.

Mao's victory over the late US-backed dictator Chiang Kai-shek -- who fled in disgrace to the island of Taiwan amid allegations of the KMT's mass slayings, heroin smuggling and other abuses -- led to the birth of communist China.

Explaining Mao's newly kindled popularity, an official at Kunming's Institute of International Studies said in an interview, "It is like in some Western countries where people wear the cross to protect them, or in some Asian countries where they wear the Buddha.

"Chinese have Mao for good luck," the official said.

"No one knows how it started. But it spread everywhere. The drivers like it because theirs is a dangerous job.

"Everybody loves Chairman Mao. He was a great leader.

"But I don't have a picture of Mao, because I don't need anyone to protect me," the official added, laughing.

Mao, however, expressed mixed feelings about political posters.

In a 1942 speech on communist literature and art, Mao said: "We oppose both works of art with a wrong political viewpoint, and the tendency towards the 'poster and slogan style,' which is correct in political viewpoint but lacking in artistic power."

Apparently the almost bland-faced Mao poster -- with its hint of a Mona Lisa smile -- qualified as having artistic power because it was splattered everywhere during his reign.

But not everyone is amused by Mao's return, even as a lucky charm or souvenir.

Mao's millions of victims are today either dead, insane, imprisoned, abroad or sullenly cowed, and it is likely that the return of his portrait haunts those who survived his wrath.

Mao lived from 1893 to 1976. He was one of the original founders of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921 and became its chairman in 1935.

As one of the world's most powerful communist leaders, he was also a theoretician on guerrilla warfare, and mobilized peasants who successfully out-maneuvered his urban-based rivals.

In 1949, Mao founded the Chinese People's Republic and dominated as its main decision maker for the rest of his life, ruthlessly eliminating competitors, destroying traditions, and inventing a failed, revolutionary society.

In 1978, two years after his death, Mao's reputation began to publicly tarnish.

But according to China's latest official line, his achievements outweigh his blunders, and today's leadership is still heavily influenced by Mao.

Perhaps the longevity of Mao's rotund face is what the late chairman was thinking when, in 1945, he asked his followers: "Can we be willing to allow political dust and germs to dirty our clean faces, or eat into our healthy organisms?"

Apparently not.

Mao's real face and body is protected against such germs because his corpse remains sealed by "anti-putrification methods" in a crystal sarcophagus at Tiananmen Square, which displays his illuminated, wax-like face for tourists.

Copyright by Richard S. Ehrlich

email: animists *at* yahoo dot com

Website, more Asia news by Richard S. Ehrlich plus the non-fiction book of interviews, documentation and investigative journalism, titled: "Hello My Big Big Honey!" Love Letters to Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews

at: http://www.oocities.org/asia_correspondent