Viewpoint: Letter from Hong Kong

Alex Buchan

I was covering the student demonstration that led to the June 4, 1989 massacre at Tiananmen Square. A young, half-starved student decided to give me a walkabout lesson as a reply to my rather lame question, "What's going on in China now?" He marched me first to one end of Tiananmen Square and showed me a huge portrait of Mao, gazing serenely into the distance. Then he led me to the other end, where he pointed to a vast neon image of Colonel Sanders, grinning everyone into the world's largest Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant. "That's China," He said simply, "Mao at one end, Colonel Sanders at the other, and everyone in the middle wondering whose face will come down first."

A Polish journalist overheard him and said, "Yes, but who would you rather follow--Mao or Colonel Sanders?"

The student blinked for a few seconds, then said, "Mao, of course, because he wanted to change the world, but all Sanders can do is sell you a nice drumstick."

I've often thought that the Square with its two faces represents the spirituality of modern China. Capitalism can feed the belly, but Maoism still broods, calling the masses to something greater than what is merely finger-licking good.

Mao is back . . . big time. September 9, 1996 was the 20th anniversary of his demise, and was marked by a flood of "Mao-morabilia". Busts, badges, little red books, portraits, plates, even watches--they are being bought in unprecedented numbers. If it has his face on it, people will buy it. Fashion house Shanghai Tang revealed that its best-selling item among students was its T-shirt line with Mao's portrait--albeit with pigtails.

Asiaweek asked the question on every Westerner's lips: "How could Mao, who through arrogance and ignorance hastened the deaths of tens of millions, be so revered today?"

The answer appears to be that time has tempered people's memories of Mao's mistakes. What remains is Mao's inspiring revolutionary side that swept away exploitive foreign powers and gave the people a crime-free society (for a time)--and ideals to die for.

Maybe this is the heart of it. The Polish journalist might have asked, "Who would you rather worship?"

A house church leader said, "People can't devote their lives to fridges, Mercedes and Reeboks--that's just stupid. They know they should live for greater ideals, social goals of equality and peace. Mao was the ultimate idealist, who never stopped talking about building a paradise for everyone."

Said a professor at Beijing's Normal University, "Mao was the only man who told us to build a better world for everyone--his goals were intoxicating even if his methods were flawed."

An elder theologian in Shanghai told his Three Self church that the longing for a better world is strong in human beings "because it is a memory, a racial memory passed down from Adam and Eve, who knew paradise for themselves". We long for what we have lost.

And so the fascination with Mao resurfacing in Chinese society today is part of the longing for God and heaven that will never go away. The tragedy is, as the Shanghai theologian put it, that "when the Chinese go shopping for a god, Mao is still the only one on the shelf. Jesus Christ has not been marketed yet to the population at large."

Alex Buchan is Asia Bureau Chief for Compass Direct.

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