China in Ten Words Read Online Free Page A

heights.
    The Yangtze swim was a fine example of our leader’s distinctive style. On July 16, 1966, Mao appeared unexpectedly at a mass swimming event in Wuhan. Cheered on by the ecstatic roars of the spectators lining the banks, with the strains of the revolution’s anthem, “The East Is Red,” blaring from the loudspeakers, Mao, then seventy-two years old, braved the wind and waves in the company of several thousand other swimmers, who, carried away with delight, shouted “Long Live Chairman Mao” at the top of their voices as the Yangtze swirled around them. The water they gulped down as they shouted must have been quite filthy, but when they returned to shore, they were unanimous in pronouncing it “unbelievably sweet.” At the end of his swim Mao clambered onto a boat, hitched up his swimming trunks, and waved majestically to the dense throngs lining the banks. After a brief wave he ducked into the cabin to change. In the newsreel documentary released after the event, the scene of him waving was edited in such a way that Mao appeared to be waving to the people for a good couple of minutes. If you count the propaganda posters that freeze-framed this famous moment and reproduced it endlessly during the Cultural Revolution, then Mao’s wave lasted a full ten years.
    The next day the People’s Daily had this to say: “It is the greatest joy of the Chinese people—and of the revolutionary peoples of the entire world—that our revered leader, Chairman Mao, is in such excellent health!” Mao himself wrote about swimming the Yangtze in one of his lyric poems: “Let the wind blow and waves beat / Better far than idly strolling in a courtyard.” † With such offhand gestures this leader of ours propelled the Cultural Revolution forward into the madness that would follow.
    The film of Mao’s swim was shown repeatedly inside China and out, and posters commemorating the event lined the walls of Chinese cities and villages. They showed Mao in his swimsuit, smiling and waving his hand, surrounded by a throng of beaming workers, peasants, soldiers, students, and shop clerks, all striking eager, attentive poses. What other political figure would make a point of waving to his people in a swimsuit? Only Mao could carry this off.
    It was a style that, in fact, preceded his becoming China’s leader, for we see evidence of it during the War of Resistance Against Japan, when he was living a hardscrabble life in the caves of Yan’an. During an interview with an American reporter Mao groped around in the crotch of his pants, catching lice, as he confidently predicted China’s victory over the Japanese.
    Once the Cultural Revolution was launched, Mao kept on waving, but the party officials around him stopped clapping. Instead, their right hands would be doing a little wave of their own, because they would be clutching copies of Quotations from Chairman Mao . The Little Red Book, as it was called, had given them a chance to wave as well, though they never dared raise their hands as high as Mao or swing them in as wide an arc.
    In the Cultural Revolution, even when Mao was not present, the party officials would wave the Little Red Book as a way of greeting the revolutionary masses. Just as today no famous actress would ever appear in public without makeup, the leadership in those days would never show their faces without the Little Red Book in hand. It was their political makeup kit.
    Today the Chinese Communist Party takes the form of a collective leadership, and when the nine members of the Politburo Standing Committee attend a news conference, they wave simultaneously to reporters, their hands at the same height, waving in the same arc. This always makes me think of Mao on Tiananmen, and of how impressive it was that he waved and everyone else clapped. Reflecting on the past in the light of the present, I have a sense that in today’s China we no longer have a leader—all we have is a leadership.
    M any years after the 1976