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Three hours from Changsha city in Hunan province, and quite literally at the end of the line, lies Shaoshan - a village with nothing to set it apart from any other in this part of China. Nothing, that is, except its most famous son: In December 1893 Mao Zedong was born here. The oldest of three brothers; a humble teacher born into a peasant family, he would later become guerilla leader, founder of New China, Party Chairman, Great Helmsman, demi-god and ultimately kitsch icon. It is curiosity that has brought me here: an almost morbid curiosity for places that have seen better days. I wanted to see for myself what has become of this once-glorious place of pilgrimage now that Mao's star has well and truly fallen. During the height of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 70s, at the very zenith of the Great Leader's personality cult, three million pilgrims every year - mostly youths in the grip of revolutionary fervour-flocked here. The railway and paved road which exist today were constructed especially to transport them, but today the vast, Soviet-style station with it's giant Mao portrait stands empty; forlorn; forgotten. Built to serve thousands of the faithful every day, today there are none, and no-one to stop me wandering around. The ticket office and waiting room and deserted and locked but otherwise eerily intact: the Marie Celeste of railway stations. Apart from the peeling paintwork - a restful shade of cornflower blue - and the weeds the station is no more run down than many others in rural China. I had heard that there was still a single daily train back to Changsha, and I wanted to ride the Revolution Express when I leave in a few days. A man walks by, but when I ask him what time it leaves he laughs: "Mei you le" - there aren't any. In what couldn't be a more appropriate metaphor, Shaoshan's last train has left. The village itself is a swift pillion-ride away on an enterprising local's motorbike, and it's dark when I arrive. There isn't a cloud in the sky - this has to be the cleanest air I've breathed so far in China - and apart from the halo of floodlights around the new statue of the great man himself, there's nothing to interfere with the view of the stars. My first indication that all is not well with Shaoshan comes when I'm beset from all sides by eager hoteliers and guesthouse owners, mere seconds after arriving. The staff of the Shaoshan Binguan - where dignitaries and Party officials once stayed - are desperate, and actively pursue me down the street, calling out a lower rate every few steps.

Chairman Mao gives a cheery wave as life goes on below his plinth.

One of the most fascinating aspects is also one of the most ordinary. Looking at the display of period farm tools and agricultural machinery it strikes me that I could see exactly the same equipment being used by looking out of the windows into the surrounding rice terraces. Very little has changed in Shaoshan - and in Chinese agriculture - in the last hundred years.

As I leave, a handful of visitors arrive, take the obligatory emotionless pictures of each other and have a cursory look around but don't seem particularly interested. Such is the incredible ritual element to Chinese sightseeing that when I ask a few of them why they've chosen to come here I'm not surprised by the reply: "It is a tourist attraction." - We come here because that's what you do, is the implication.

The Mao Museum is closed, apparently for renovation.

- "When will it be open?" I ask.

- "Soon. Maybe."

 Everyone here is trying very hard not to admit it, but the whole place is threadbare and devoid of visitors. The cracks are showing, and Shaoshan's star, like that of its patron saint, has fallen.

It might be the ultimate irony, given how religion of any kind was persecuted and suppressed under the Mao regime, that atop the near-perfectly conical peak overlooking the Chairman's birthplace there now sits a Taoist shrine. The old monk in charge tells me that it and he have been there for six years. He is surprised to see an early morning visitor, and hurries to don his robes as he sees me approach.

- "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.
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The deserted station platform at Shaoshan.

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.

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."
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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.

Above Shaoshan, an single old monk looks after the Taoist shrine.

..
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.
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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.

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