Beijing Massage Parlors: Mao’s personal photographer remembers the Great Helmsman
Mark MacKinnon Beijing — From Thursday’s Globe and Mail Last updated on Wednesday, Sep. 30, 2009 11:02PM EDT
Standing less than two metres from Mao Zedong as he stood on the rostrum overlooking Tiananmen Square, proclaiming that a new People’s Republic had come to this ancient land, Hou Bo didn’t have time to contemplate the moment. She just tried to hold her ground and take as many photographs as she could.
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While modern China’s defenders highlight how much the country has changed since the dark days of the Cultural Revolution, it hasn’t evolved enough for Mao’s successors to remove the sign exhorting “Long live invincible Mao Zedong thought!” from the outer gate of the leadership’s Zhongnanhai compound in the centre of the Beijing.
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Ms. Hou is less certain. She and her husband have spent their retirement in an apartment on the edge of Beijing’s highly Westernized Sanlitun district, an area packed with Western clothing chains as well as salacious nightclubs and massage parlours.
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