Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader (65 page)

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Authors: Geremie Barme

Tags: #History, #Asia, #China, #Literary Criticism, #Asian, #Chinese, #Political Science, #Political Ideologies, #Communism; Post-Communism & Socialism, #World, #General, #test

BOOK: Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader
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17. Nie Yuanzi, a teacher of philosophy at Beijing University, wrote the crucial first big character poster of the Cultural Revolution which Mao supported. Xu Jingxian was the Party Secretary of the Shanghai Revolutionary Committee at the end of the Cultural Revolution. Both were subsequently tried and jailed.
18. These details are all taken from a short story Ye Yonglie wrote and are, in fact, fictional. Ye discusses the story, "Ba Jinde meng," and well-intentioned misrepresentations of it like this in Jin Zhong, "Wenge yanjiu yu Zhonggong dang'an zhidufangwen Shanghai zuojia Ye Yonglie xiansheng," p. 57.
19. Wang Zhuangling, "`Wenge wenwu' chao."
20. For the "Three Standard Articles," see "A Place in the Pantheon," note 14.
21.
Hong baoshu,
that is,
Quotations from Chairman Mao.

 

Page 210
22. In August 1995, it was reported that the largest porcelain Mao badge measuring 1 meter in diameter had been put on display by the Entertainment Company (
Yule gongsi)
of Xiamen, which had originally purchased it for 23,000
yuan.
A recent offer of 280,000
yuan
had been made for the badge. See "Juxing Mao xiangzhang."
23. "
Quanguo shanhe yipian hong."
In this stamp the whole of China was printed in red except for Taiwan. It was immediately withdrawn from circulation. A market in this and various other rare or important Mao-era stamps developed from the 1980s. The first Mao stamp was produced in Shandong in 1944. Illustrations of this and other Mao stamps can be found in Zhu Zuwei, Lin Xuan, et al.,
Mao Zedong youpiao quanji.
For an illustration of
"Quanguo shanhe yipian hong,"
see p. 91.

 

Page 211
Hanging Mao
Hou Dangsheng
From 1991 laminated Mao portraits appeared hanging in the windscreens or set up on the dashboards of vehicles throughout China. The fad reportedly originated in Guangdong Province after a person or people miraculously avoided injury in a car accident because, it was said, their automobile was protected by a portrait of Mao. Like the door gods and lucky talismans that Chinese have traditionally used to adorn their dwellings, the Mao portrait was now recognized as a way to ensure safety and good fortune.
In Chinese, these laminated Mao mobiles are often simply called
guawu,
literally "hangings." They were sold all over the country and by a range of outlets: from street-side stalls and temple stores to the Mao Memorial Hall itself.
In design they varied widely. The more austere simply featured a picture of Mao, the most popular representations being of "the young Mao," that is, the retouched picture of Mao in a Red Army uniform taken by Edgar Snow in the 1930s, or the official portrait of the aged Mao, although Mao in a PLA uniform dating from the early Cultural Revolution was also common. More elaborate hangings had the Mao picture framed in mock-Chinese temples, or with gold ingots hanging from the picture with more traditional benedictions like "May the winds fill your sails
" (yifan fengshun)
or "May you make a fortune"
(gongxi facai)
on the reverse side.
So often these days when looking at the windscreen of a taxi cab I've noticed laminated pictures of Mao Zedong hanging from the rear-view mirror. Some drivers simply put a portrait of Mao on the dashboard. So the solemn figure of Chairman Mao travels in these cars around the city, dangling and bobbing with every jerk and movement of the vehicle, like an ever-present tutelary diety.
Car decorations directly reflect the attitudes of drivers. A few years back

 

Page 212
it was popular to display talismans with auspicious messages like "May you travel in safety," "May the wind fill your sails" or "May wealth come your way."
1
Back then no one ever imagined that these would be replaced by laminated pictures of Mao Zedong. What does it mean? It was this question that led me to observe drivers in the bustling heart of the cities as well as in the remote outskirts and I discovered many people hung pictures of Mao in their vehicles. My fascination in the subject led me to interview a number of drivers.
At Xi'an Train Station I came across a taxi driver whose beard really made him stand out from the crowd. He was in a red taxi reclining in his seat waiting for a fare. He was all alone, except for the Chairman who was hanging in front of him.
He jumped up when I tapped on the taxi window, got out and asked me whether I wanted a cab. I handed him a Red Pagoda Hill
2
cigarette and asked him whether he had time for a chat. He had me get into his car and wound up the window so as to shut out the distracting noises of the outside world.
It turned out that he used to work with a building company but he quit because business wasn't too good. He paid 3,000
yuan
to go to a driving school and, with the help of some friends, bought his own taxi. He'd already paid off his debts and was making a pretty good living as a taxi driver. . . .
I asked him why he had a picture of Mao in his car. After a lot of hesitation he eventually said, "I'm just doing what everyone else does."
"But what do you really think of Mao?" I asked.
"I'm just an average guy. I don't understand the big picture or anything like that, but I reckon that since he sent Chiang Kai-shek packing off to Taiwan and founded the People's Republic of China, he must have been pretty amazing. There was something mystical about Mao Zedong. Whenever I get together with my other mates who drive taxis we always come to the same conclusion.
"Have you heard the story about the traffic accident in the south? There was this head-on collision between a truck and a taxi, see, and although the truck driver got hurt, the taxi driver came out of it without a scratch. They say he had a portrait of Chairman Mao in his car and that's what protected him. So now people reckon the Chairman's like a guardian god."
His story reminded me of something I'd heard: officials in a certain area not only inspected all the relevant documentation when a car came up for registration, they also checked to see if it had a Mao portrait hanging over the dash. If not, they fined the driver. . . .
It was warm and relaxing in the sun and not far away you could see part

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