Chairman Mao still cherished by Chinese

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-09-09 22:56

BEIJING: More than 20,000 people visited Mao Zedong's Mausoleum on Tian'anmen Square Wednesday, the 33rd anniversary of the death of the former Chinese leader.

The figure almost double the average in regular days, showing people's fervent love and respect for the "Great Helmsman", who led the nation to found New China in 1949 and served as top leader until he died on September 9, 1976, said Chu Fengming, an employee of Mao's Mausoleum in the center of the square.

Clutching flowers, Wang Yetang was waiting patiently in a long queue outside the giant concrete building at around 7:30 am.

"I've been waiting for many years to come to Beijing to see him. He is the man that I respect the most in my life," said Wang, 65, a native of Jiangxi Province in east China.

"I've read many books about Mao and I learnt that he was a great man who has influenced Chinese society for the past decades," said Wen Bin, a sophomore of the University of Science and Technology Beijing.

Visitors began to enter the hall at 8 am. Many presented bouquets to Mao's statue and some wept while looking at Mao's body preserved in a crystal casket.

In the People's Republic, which he founded 60 years ago, Chairman Mao still has a great impact on the 1.3 billion people, who are deriving strength, wealth and wisdom from the "Red Sun".

In Mao Zedong's faraway birthplace of Shaoshan village in Hunan Province, crowds of visitors gathered at Mao Zedong Square Wednesday, presenting floral baskets or paying silent tribute to his 6-meter-tall bronze statue.

"My family prepared a banquet for him, this has become a tradition," said Mao Taozhi, 49, who was in the crowd.

"We would not have such a life without him, Shaoshan people will never forget him," she said.

Calling himself "sticking like a limpet", a student of Shanxi Finance & Taxation Institute in north China published a 430-character poem on his blog Tuesday, recalling Mao's great deeds as a state leader and expressing his wishes for a country of law and a clean government.