- "Do many tourists come here?" I ask, indicating the stationary cable-car.
- "Not many. Pilgrims, sometimes, but not tourists."

I tell him that I am in Shaoshan to visit Mao's birthplace. "What do you think of him?" I ask. The reply is not bitter, merely completely dismissive:

- "Nothing. Nothing at all."

Taoism has long outlived the Chairman. It evidently takes more than a brief revolutionary interlude and a crazy, fat old dictator to topple a religion dating back more than two millennia.

Back in the village, I am pestered into a rather expensive lunch at a restaurant so desperate for business that it's practically dragging customers in off the street. The street in question being full of identical empty restaurants, the only difference about mine is that it has someone in it: Me.

Shaoshan is the tourist attraction that time forgot.

The walls are whitewashed and armies of fearsome-looking women sweep the streets - both of them - spotless; all the infrastructure is here to keep visitors by the coachload happy, as are the hopeful-looking souvenir sellers, clustered on every corner. If you're in the market for Mao statuary and other hagiographic kitsch then this is the place to come. Every other shop is full and overflowing with statues, busts, plates, medals, badges, VCDs, pendants, good-luck charms... full of everything, in fact, except customers. Where are all the tourists? There's a brand-new statue, complete with seraphic halo and scattered with floral tributes, and the futuristic Mao Zedong Memorial Library – both inaugurated by President Jiang Zemin in 1996. It would seem that the authorities are still ploughing money into Shaoshan regardless, trying desperately to ignore the fact that nobody wants to come here anymore. It's a pretty place, with trees and green fields, and untouched by China's rampaging modernisation, but with it's chief drawcard now out of favour, the tourism seems to have completely dried up.

I buy some oranges in the empty market: "You're the first foreign customer I've ever had", says the stallholder. I go back to the hotel - "Oh. You're back" says the cheerless owner, and I go upstairs wondering if people make a habit of leaving their clothes and not returning.

On my final night in the village, I witness the extraordinary sight of two local middle-school students bowing and praying, Buddhist-fashion, to Mao's statue. They are as self-conscious as any boys their age, and don't know I'm watching, having waited for the square to clear. I wait until they move away before approaching and striking up conversation - talking to a Foreigner is clearly an event for them.

- "What do you think of him?" they ask, indicating the statue.
- "I never knew him" I joke "What about you?"
- "Hen weida" they chorus - a very great man. Although everything about the way they say this suggests it isn't their own opinion, but one rote-learnt from a textbook.

I so badly want to ask why they were praying there, or what they were praying for, but a combination of inadequate language skills and not wanting to embarrass them keeps my mouth closed. I'll never know, but my own suspicion is that their generation has never known - other than in a very general way - what happened in China's recent history. They have no direct experience to draw on, and their parents' generation often doesn't speak of it, so China has all too easily forgotten the ills of the past and Mao becomes – like emperors and ancestors before him - just another graven idol to invoke for good luck in exams or help in finding a job.

The following morning in the bus yard, a man sidles up to me - if it's possible to sidle on a motorbike – and asks where I'm going.

- "Changsha"
- "Do you want to go on my motorbike?" It's 75 miles.
- "No, thankyou. I'll take the bus." I move to walk away but he grabs my arm.
- "Do you want a girl?" he hisses "200 kuai." I walk away and he looks crestfallen.
- "100!" he calls after me, but I'm already on the
 bus.

Back in Changsha, the station clock chimes 'The East Is Red' on the hour - a Cultural Revolution-era anthem composed as an elegy to Mao. Maybe the old man hasn't been completely forgotten around here after all. 'Judy', the out-of-work actress that I meet on the train to Guilin certainly has her own ideas about him:

- "He was the spirit of the Chinese people. He liberated our China. Although he was the Chairman he was very kind, just like an ordinary man."
 - "What about later, after Liberation? Some people say he made some mistakes..." Judy giggles.
- "Of course! Everyone makes mistakes!" Tens of millions of people died as a result of Mao's policies. Maybe not those kind of mistakes, Judy.

Her cheerful manner makes it difficult to know if she means it, or even knows any more about the man than I do. She can only be in her mid-twenties, not even born when the Chairman died. I tell her about Shaoshan, and say I was fascinated by it because I don't think anyone goes there any more. 

- "Maybe everyone has already been there" she counters. An interesting answer.
- "Have you been there?" 
- "No. But I have lots of time to go."

Beijing. Tian'anmen Square. The name is now synonymous in many minds with the events that unfolded here in 1989, but this vast expanse of pavement - the largest public square in the world - has been at the very heart of Chinese history for centuries. With a large enough lever and a place to stand, it has been said, it might be possible to move the world. This is the place.

An impressively large portrait of the late Chairman - pictured during his 'pumpkin' phase, towards the end of his life - still smiles benignly, some have said vacantly, down from the Gate of Heavenly Peace immediately to the north. Lending its name to the square below, this silent witness to the changing times has been the location for emperors to issue decrees to their subjects since the Ming Dynasty, and apart from a brief hiatus in the early 20th century when the capital was moved - first to Nanjing, then to Chongqing - recent Chinese leaders have not bucked the trend: it was from Tian'anmen that Mao declared the People's Republic on October 1st, 1949.

In the centre of the square stands the imposing, columned edifice known affectionately by Beijing expats as the Maosoleum. It's 8 a.m., and already the queue snakes half-way around the southern side of the square. This might be the first time I've seen an orderly queue in China, but the armed sentries every few paces probably have something to do with that. Work on the Great Helmsman's final resting place began immediately following his death in 1976, and his enbalmed corpse has been interred for all to see ever since. Having paid a visit to the similarly-preserved and sanctified mortal remains of Lenin several years ago in Moscow, I was keen to make a comparison. Whereas in Red Square the mood was sombre and solemn, and the tomb confined and claustrophobic, here in Tian'anmen a distinct indifference permeates the crowd - this is a very matter-of-fact pilgrimage, just one more tour item to tick off the list. Inside, the line shuffles around the perimeter of the large hall, casting an almost perfunctory look in the direction of the catafalque in the centre - about five metres away (Lenin, by comparison had been almost within arm's reach). The PLA guards are unsmiling, but it's difficult to be intimidated by soldiers whose uniforms are several sizes too big. I am distinctly underwhelmed, I have to admit, to be confronted with the physical presence of the Leader. There is nothing of the reverential atmosphere or the feeling of being completely transfixed that I had experienced in Moscow, but maybe two deceased Communist leaders is one too many.

Then, all of a sudden I'm back outside, fighting off the picture-sellers and sovenir hawkers, and the whole experience instantly takes on a dreamlike quality. One thing's for sure - whatever the old man might have done to the economy while he was alive, sales of Mao memorabilia are certainly lending a hand to the booming free market these days. The same selection, and more, of gaudy trinkets bearing the Great Leader's image are available here as were in Shaoshan, only here people actually seem to be buying them. I move on before temptation gets the better of me.

However history judges Mao Zedong, whether we follow the official Party summation of his life (that he was 70% right and 30% wrong), or choose to make up our own minds about him, it's clear that his impact on the course of the 20th-century world was enormous. It's easy to vilify his deeds and excesses, but without him China would not be where she is today. The current attitude within China is a confusing paradox - on the one hand he is despised for the painful memories associated with the Cultural Revolution, while on the other he will always be remembered as the saviour who united China and put her on the map as a world power. He is irrelevant to, and forgotten by many, but is also seen superstitiously as a saint whose image will bring good fortune or protect against illness. Such is the nature of the complex and contradictory feelings surrounding Chairman Mao that I don't even know what I think of him anymore, if I ever had an opinion, and it'll certainly take long beyond my year here to make up my mind.

Ben Hill (b.p.hill@dunelm.org.uk) left the drizzle and familiarity of the north of England in 2002 to work with the British Council as a teacher of English in Chengdu, south-west China. He's going to stay there until he works out what to do next, and in the meantime uses writing and photography to document his experiences.