 | reading public in the late-Qing reforms (
xinzheng
). See Yang Ping,
"Zeng Guofan
xianxiangde qishi"; and Lu Jia, "Wan-Qing zhengzhire ranshao quan Zhongguo."
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| 270. See Wang Shan (alias Luoyiningge'er),
Disan zhi yanjing kan Zhongguo,
chs. 2-4.
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| 271. This is the line taken by Liu Yazhou in
Guangchang: ouxiangde shentan
(see "The Mysterious Circle of Mao Zedong" below); and Wang Shan,
Disan zhi yanjing kan Zhongguo,
pp. 45, 46, 49-50, 53-54ff. Yang Ping quotes two such passages in an article that accompanied an excerpt from the book in
Beijing qingnian bao:
"History has only showered love on the Chinese in one respect: it has given them the unadulterated figures of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping"; and "Take advantage of this opportunity and never abandon Mao Zedong or Deng Xiaoping." See Yang Ping, ''Disan zhong yanguangping
Disan zhi yanjing kan Zhongguo."
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| 272. Numerous articles on and reviews of Li's memoirs appeared in the non-Mainland Chinese press and particularly in Hong Kong journals such as
Kaifang zazhi, Zhengming, Jiushi niandai yuekan,
and
Mingbao yuekan
in 1994-95. The historical and academic value of Li's book is a highly contentious issue, as a number of Western academics have pointed outsee, for example, Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, "Mao Matters: A Review Essay"; also Frederick C. Teiwes, "Seeking the Historical Mao,"
The China Quarterly,
March 1996; and essays on Li's memoirs by Lucian Pye, Anne Thurston, Barmé, et al, in
The China Journal,
no. 35, January 1996. The Chinese authorities have been cautious about denouncing the book, although one major refutation of Li's portrayal of Zhou Enlai has been made by Zhou's doctor Zhang Puchang. See Zhang Fan, "Zhongnanhai taiyi shouci pengji Li Zhisui,"
Hualian shibao,
26 May 1995. The China Study Group, coordinated by C.H. Hua and C.Y. Tung in New York, undertook a comparison of the Chinese and English texts of this book and noted numerous discrepancies between the two. See "
Mao Zedong siren yisheng huiyilu yishu
neirong zhenshixingde yanjiu baogao zhaiyao" (manuscript version, 1995); also Hua Junxiong and Dong Qingyuan, "
Guyanyu Mao Zedong siren yisheng huiyilu
yishude gongkaixin." This study group also distributed "A Protest Against Random House's Fraudulent Memoirs of Mao's Physician, by Mao Zedong's Staff and Others" (in Chinese "Ruhua fangongde choue biaoyanwomen dui Li Zhisui jiqi `huiyilu' de kanfa") dated 22 July 1995, Beijing (manuscript version). This was a classic MaoSpeak-style denunciation of Li's book signed by 135 people including Wang Dongxing, Wang Hebin (another of Mao's doctors), and what amounts to a Who's Who of Party conservatives. For a more prosaic Mainland account of Mao's relations with his doctors, see Cao Wedong,
Hong bingli.
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| 273. See, for example, the conversation between Li Zehou and Liu Zaifu, "Mao Zedong beiju pingshuo," serialized in
Mingbao yuekan
in Hong Kong from early 1995.
|
| 274. See Barmé, "To Screw Foreigners Is Patriotic."
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| 275. See William Bouwsma,
A Usable Past
(1990), quoted in Peter J. Fowler,
The Past in Contemporary Society Then, Now,
p. 136.
|
| 276. These quotations from Bruce Chatwin's
Songlines
appear in "The Starn Twins: Christ (Stretched)," pp. 58-59. See also Apter and Saich,
Revolutionary Discourse in Mao's Republic,
p. 307, on the "cosmocratic evolution" of Mao, involving an Odysseuslike early career and his conversion in Yan'an into a Socratic figure. It is interesting to note here that Mike Tyson, U.S. boxer and convicted rapist, remarked shortly after his release from jail in 1995 that he was so impressed by Mao's writings that he had an image of the Chairman tatooed on his arm. "I like Mao's persistence, his perseverance. . . . He had more guts than anybody in the world," Tyson was quoted as saying in Las Vegas on the eve of his comeback. The boxer also claimed to be partial to Aristotle and Voltaire, and his arm also bears a tatoo of Arthur Ashe. From an AP story reported in
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