The men who have shaped history - Napoleon, Genghis Khan, et al - all had vision, endless energy, and indomitable will. We mere mortals like to believe they were two-dimensional overachievers. Had they felt, laughed, and cried as we do, they would have been far too busy being human to have been demigods. CCTV shows about Mao bolster this fallacy; all his character does is stroll about purposefully, calmly spouting wisdom. But a read through Quan Yanchi's MAO ZEDONG: Man, Not God, proves that the Great Helmsman was as multi-faceted as any one of us "normal" humans.

 

"I'm getting married tomorrow, Dad." Mao Anying tried to give the chairman the impression that nothing could stop him now.

"Haven't I told you to wait?"

"This is something I can decide for myself, I guess."

"You can decide who you want to marry, but not at what age you can marry. The regulations decide that."

"Lots of people get married in spite of them..."

"But you are Mao Zedong's son!" Mao slapped the writing brush on the ink stone. Who will stick to the regulations if you don't?"

Mao Anying left feeling bitter. Mao, panting in anger, mumbled to himself, "A happy day spoiled!"

 

~

 

"Did I hear something, Feng?"

"I'm sorry, Comrade Chairman. I, I broke....wind."

"You didn't, did you? You complained. I should apologize to you, not you to me. It's my fault for making you so tired during the last few days."

"No, I didn't complain, Comrade Chairman. I broke wind."

"You didn't. You complained. You were right to complain." Then in his thick Hunan accent, Mao continued rhythmically, "When people have a complaint to make, there is wind to break. Break it boldly to the chairman so you'll live happily."

 

~

 

During the battle of Shajiadian, Mao did not leave his room for three days and two nights, nor did he sleep a wink. When victory was won, with the annihilation of the enemy's thirty-sixth division and more than six thousand enemy troops captured, Mao said, "Try to get me a bowl of stewed pork. And make it fat."

"That's the least you deserve for such a big victory. I'll get it right away."

"I don't mean that," Mao said, shaking his head wearily. "My brain's been overworked in the past few days. Some fat meat will help refresh it."

When I brought the meat to him, he smelled it long and hard, and with eyes half-closed, he said with satisfaction, "It smells really good." He picked up the chopsticks, and in just a few minutes it was gone."

He put down the bowl. When he found me watching him in surprise, he smiled bashfully like a child. "Couldn't resist the temptation," he said. "I didn't ask too much, did I, compared with the victory we won?"

 

~

One day, in Yangjiagou, in northern Shaanxi, I was showing Mao a grey army uniform that had become threadbare in many places and was as hard as cardboard in others, and was covered in patches. "Look at the uniform, Comrade Chairman," I said. "You can't wear it any longer; you'd look ridiculous in it. If you wear it to address a meeting, any movement you make with your hands will cause it to come apart at the seams."

Mao took the uniform from me. None of his clothes could be thrown away without his permission. He placed the uniform carefully on his lap, and ran his hand over te crinkles as if stroking a wounded soldier.

"It's what I wore at the Luochan meeting," Mao said, his eyes suddenly moistening around the rims. For a while he just stared blankly at the uniform, nostalgically recalling the enlarge dmeeting of the Polituro held in Luochan in northern Shaanxi in August 1937. Then, after recounting some of the "services" it had performed, he said with a deep sigh, "Let's agree on this: we'll use it for patches so that it can still serve some useful purposes and I can still see it."

Mao might have been talking about an old comrade-in-arms with whom he endured hard times.

 

~

Late in 1959, some of the guards who were returning from home furlough in the countryside, where tey had been investigating local conditions, brought back some buns made with chaff and wild herbs. The buns had turned moldy on the way. Mao was shaken at the sight of them. He broke them with trembling hands and gave the pieces to us. "Eat them," he said. "This is what the peasants eat. We should eat it..."

Mao selected a whole bun. When he took the first bite, his eyes turned red, his Adam's apple moving up and down in his effort not to choke; he took a second bite and his eyelashes grew wet with tears, and by the time he took the third bite, his face was streaked with tears.

 

~

It was a quiet night. The rain had made the fields soggy. Mao stopped at a small mound and loosened his belt. When I knew he was going to relieve himself, I relaxed a bit.

Mao squatted down. I kept a watch round-about, concealing myself in the darkness. I don't recall how long he remained in that position. When he rose at last, he did not walk away immediately; squatting down too long must have numbed his legs, and when he moved away his steps were unsteady.

"Why didn't you use the toilet, Comrade Chairman?"

"It stinks. The smell there hurts your brain," Mao grumbled.

~

Fang Yaosong met a girl at a dance. He fell in love with her. Very soon he fell out of it. She was a member of a song and dance ensemble. When Mao heard about this during a trip, he tried to talk Feng out of his feeling of frustration.

"You shouldn't have taken a fancy to a girl from a song and dance ensemble in the first place," Mao said. " A girl like that want to look chic and enjoy life. On your salary of just over forty yuan a month, you could hardly make her happy. We're not living in a communist society yet, and you have to be realistic."

~

"I want to talk to you, Tian," Mao spoke kindly and sincerely. "I would like to pay you from my own pocket so that the government won't have to pay you. How much do you need?"

"Tian hesitated, unable to decide whether or not it would be correct to accept the offer.

"What's your pay now?"

"Forty-three yuan."

"What would you say to sixty yuan?"

"Well..." As Tian told us later, he was so happy that he was on the verge of thanking Mao, when he had second thoughts. "I wouldn't be on the government payroll any longer then, and should the chairman die..." So he declined the offer with an excuse. "Would that be the right thing to do? Wouldn't I then be hired by you personally, Comrade Chairman?"

"What?" Apparently Mao had not thought of that. After a brief pause, he said nodding, "You're right. Money's a lousy thing. But there's nothing I can do about it; nothing anyone can do, not even Lenin. We just can't manage without it."

"Back in the days when I worked in Beijing, I received only eight yuan a month. I could only afford meat dumplings once; I had them in a restaurant, they tasted better than anything I had ever eaten. Meat dumplings are nothing special to you now, are they? You see, money's such a lousy thing, but you still can't live without it."

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