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Chairman's popularity in decline for years, but presence still felt in his hometown

Mao’s old house is massive. The Chairman began his life in a mansion (by 20th-century Chinese peasant standards) in the village of Shaoshan, 90 kilometres southwest of Changsha in the Hunan province.
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Mao’s old house is massive. The Chairman began his life in a mansion (by 20th-century Chinese peasant standards) in the village of Shaoshan, 90 kilometres southwest of Changsha in the Hunan province. For less than a dollar, tourists can poke around Mao’s old bedroom and explore the legend of one of the 20th century’s most illustrious leaders.

The yellow brick farmhouse still stands, guarded by a few tired-looking members of the People’s Liberation Army who shelter themselves from the rain with umbrellas. A slow stream of domestic tourists flows through the entranceway to the tile-roofed building, pausing to learn about the leader’s mythic personality.

From 1936 to 1945, the Chinese Communist Party exploded from the rice paddies surrounding Shaoshan. In those nine years, party membership grew from 7,000 to over 1.2 million and formed an alternative government in Northern China.

Today, none of that fervour remains in Mao’s house. Although labeled a site of national interest, Mao’s falling reputation in his homeland has resulted in fewer pilgrims. In the past, thousands flocked to the house to purchase tiny red and gold Mao charms to hang from the rear-view mirrors in their cars. Smokers lit their cigarettes with Mao-emblazoned lighters. While tacky souvenir stands still line the entranceway to the site, most wares seem more kitsch than inspirational.

The building was built by Mao’s grandfather, a poor peasant, in 1878. At that time it housed two families, one in each of the two wings. As Mao’s father, an industrious peasant named Mao Jen-shen, become more successful, he added rooms and bought a tile roof.

At age six, Mao began working the farm and the surrounding three acres of land, teaching himself to swim in nearby lotus ponds. Entering the village primary school two years later, Mao studied until 1907 before rejoining his family on the farm, where he worked another three years. In 1910, Mao left the Shaoshan home again to study. He split his time between two teachers: an unemployed law student and an elderly Chinese scholar. Reading classical literature and contemporary newspaper articles, Mao learned both Confucian and modern ideas. After completing his education, Mao traveled widely in China.

As if waiting for Mao to return one final time, the train station now welcomes visitors with a massive portrait of the Chairman and a recorded version of "The East is Red". Spread throughout the town are various monuments to its famous ex-resident, including a huge bronze statue set in the main town square. The flower boxes around the image are carefully picked free of weeds and bloom in brilliant yellow, pink and red. Nearby garbage cans are emptied regularly and the streets are swept clean.

Mao’s final return to Shaoshan was in 1925. Once home, he moved between villages, living and working alongside peasants. He performed an informal survey of the countryside. After learning 10 per cent of the population was composed of landlords and rich peasants while 70 per cent were poor, Mao began planning his strategy to revolutionize China.

The Mao Ancestral Temple celebrates the man’s work among the peasants who lived and worked near his hometown, and the Mao Zedong Exhibition Hall offers a whitewashed snapshot into the man’s history. In the hall, which once teemed with Red Guards, visitors are treated to a collection of Mao memorabilia, broken up by sculptures depicting the efforts of square-jawed peasants, workers and revolutionaries. Based on a loose chronology, the exhibition, which is all in Chinese, contains photographs of some of the major events in the rise of Chinese communism, along with uniforms, shovels and other symbols of the movement. Near the end of the museum, visitors can purchase a ticket into a room of "things left behind by Mao Zedong" which features some of the Chairman’s personal possessions – glasses, jackets and writing brushes.

Walking past Mao’s parents’ room, it’s easy to imagine the young revolutionary dressed in his trademark jacket, scratching out plans with one of the brushes. It was in the attic, in August 1925, that Mao and a group of locals met to hammer out a plan to "liberate" China via Communism. Under flickering candlelight, they etched out their strategy.

The group became the first peasant Communist Party branch, one of a series of cells that formed in isolated pockets across the country. The Shaoshan group eventually expanded into 32 peasant cadres of over 100,000 people, all but 7,000 of whom died or defected during the famous Long March and in attacks instigated by Chiang Kai-Shek between 1927 and 1934.

Faced with the economic failures of Chiang Kai-Shek’s Republic and the Japanese invasion, these political groups thought of Communism as an alternative to China’s crisis. As it turned out, much of the population agreed, and this belief carried on into the 1970s.

During the Cultural Revolution, when university-aged Red Guards marched against their teachers brandishing Mao’s Little Red Book of quotations, the farm house-museum was so popular it housed two identical exhibitions to accommodate all the visitors. In 1972, the site received over a million visitors. Now, the ancestral temple is almost empty, with most tourists giving the place a cursory, dutiful glance before moving to nearby restaurants.

Born on Dec. 26, 1893, Mao was the eldest of three surviving children (out of seven). Wandering through the misty fields and rolling, path-strewn hills around the home, it is easy to imagine Mao developing the love of physical fitness that becomes reflected in the Communist government’s emphasis on organized exercise.

Even though Mao’s popularity has declined, taking with it the burgeoning tourism that was Shaoshan’s economic backbone, the village has done well. The streets, though empty, are taken care of and residents dress nicely. Compared to other village towns of comparable size, especially in the less developed provinces of Anhui or Sichuan, the people of Shaoshan are almost rich. In 1995, China’s Economic Information Daily reported that Shaoshan, which had a population of 100,000, was home to over 3,000 self-employed business people.

Though many now revile Mao for disastrous policies like the Great Leap Forward and the infamous Cultural Revolution, in his hometown, the man’s legend still nurtures the town. And townspeople still hang tiny Mao trinkets near their front doors and decorate their walls with propaganda posters.

Somewhat fittingly, local legend holds that Shaoshan is the birthplace of phoenixes.