Trivial Pursuit With Chairman Mao
Does anyone know, or care, what Richard Nixon’s favorite pork dish was, or Gerald Ford’s most-loved place to swim? Can anyone tell me if Dwight Eisenhower enjoyed poetry or if Ronald Reagan was an obedient child? Didn’t think so. Ask anyone in China those same questions about Chairman Mao Zedong, however, and you’ll likely get consistent and authoritative answers. The Chinese know lots of facts about their former leader and they toss them around like the plot points of a “Seinfeld” episode. At times though, it seems, the frightening details and consequences of his disastrous policies, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution included, get swept under the rug.
The cult of Mao manifests itself in many ways, not the least of which is the elevation of the former dictator to near god-like status. One colleague told me that the Chinese think of him “almost like Jesus,” apparently believing the comparison would help me better understand his true stature. A translator in Wuhan waxed on about his “beautiful mind,” based on his “inspirational” writings, and then proceeded to describe how a doctor-prescribed traditional treatment of black tea, black tofu and black beans had restored her gray hair to its natural black color. Questioning the wisdom of authority figures, you see, just isn’t done.
For the record, Mao’s favorite pork dish was red-braised or hong shao rou, he loved Wuhan and particularly liked swimming in its stretch of the Yangtze River, he wrote many poems and allegedly was a good kid. These are a few bits of his real or imagined history that acquaintances, tour guides, colleagues and strangers share freely and quite regularly. Their collective belief in, continuous recounting and spontaneous recital of the minutia of Mao’s life are one of Chinese culture’s many unifying forces.
The perseverance of a certain myth involving George Washington, an ax and a cherry tree proves that Americans are no strangers to embracing propaganda and repeating it like fact. Washington’s dentures were not made of wood either, but that “fact” is still tossed around as well.
While most fifth graders may not know what tricky-Dick was ordering up from the White House kitchen, they can tell you that Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin, Thomas Jefferson was also an architect that spoke seven languages and the Teddy Bear was named after Theodore Roosevelt. The myths and inflated legends of past leaders mingle freely with actual details that we know and share. Unlike the Chinese with regards to Mao though, some of us know to take our learned history with a grain of salt. What unifies us most, perhaps, is our skepticism and agreement to disagree when necessary.
Chairman Mao died in September of 1976, but his image is still famously displayed in Tiananmen Square at the gate to the Forbidden City, as well as in homes and businesses and on pendants dangling from rear-view mirrors in private cars and taxis across the country. The “opening up” and free-market policies of Deng Xiaoping are the true foundation of China’s current growth and economic development, but his image and personal trivia are, comparatively and surprisingly, missing in action.
Shanghai, Chongqing and Beijing are cities that reflect the potential and portend the future of China. In their modernity and internationalism they project an image of the country that is in sync with, and in fact a leader in, the developed world. Little details like the stubborn persistence of the cult of Mao, however, are the real barometers to watch for when determining China’s actual entrée into the modern world. As soon as it starts being served up with a healthy dose of perspective, that’s when we’ll see a real great leap forward.
© Markus Horak, 2010
