Mao had resided in Zhongnanhai, the walled district of Beijing that is China’s new Forbidden City; Deng chose to live not in Zhongnanhai but in a block-long house called Miliangku (literally “rice-grain storehouse”), not far away. It was there that China’s unquestioned leader, its emperor without portfolio, enjoyed his family, played his beloved games of bridge and drifted into senescence, dealing with the specters that haunt the capital and the realm.
mandag 23. september 2024
In Retrospect: Deng Xiaoping - The Last Emperor
“Leaders are men, not gods,” said Deng Xiaoping. Mao Zedong, the man who would be a god, lies embalmed and displayed in his mausoleum in Tiananmen Square. Deng has asked that his eyes be donated to medicine, his ashes be cast into the sea and no monuments be built to him.
