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In Kashgar’s largest bazaar a few years ago, I spotted a pencil holder sporting an iconic Cultural Revolution image: Mao Zedong and Marshal Lin Biao smiling together. But Mao’s personally chosen heir apparent had been a nonperson since 1971, when he allegedly godfathered an abortive plot to kill the Chairman and then died a traitor in a plane crash, fleeing to the Soviet
Just two hours after sales began online on Friday, tickets for six out of the 10 scheduled performances of stage play The Awakening Age, an adaptation of the hit TV series of the same name, had sold out.
“If there was anything Mao wouldn’t want to see, it was tears. Mao said on one occasion, ‘I can’t bear to see poor people cry. When I see their tears, I can’t hold back my own.’ “Another thing which upset Mao was bloodshed.” —From Mao Zedong: Man, Not God by Quan Yanchi11.These observations should not be taken on trust. The author, a loyal hack of the official Chinese Writers’
Yang Kaihui—who was killed 85 years ago this month—was the first of Mao Zedong’s three freely chosen wives. (Mao was forced by his parents to wed an older neighbor when he was just 14 but did not consider this a true marriage.) Yang’s dramatic, and tragic, life story is widely known in China. It has been turned into dance dramas, like the China National Opera & Dance Drama
Mao Anying experienced the full brunt of the war against Germany and Japan, only to end up succumbing to an American air raid. In the