Mao Zedong was omnipresent in Chinese society, while he was alive. Everyone apparently carried the Communist leader’s Little Red Book, filled with the wit and wisdom of the great leader, who clearly was meant to replace Confucius as the greatest thinker in the history of the country.

The Great Helmsman, as he apparently liked to be known, ruled this place with an iron fist for nearly 30 years, right up till his death in 1976. And everything he said or did was right. Up to an including various and sundry disastrous Five Year Plans and the Cultural Revolution, which set back China’s growth by at least a generation.

Anyway, Mao is keeping a much lower profile, these days. As well he should.

My impression is that his face used to be in every public building. Maybe in every home, too. In every room of every building.

But the man who was everywhere is a lot less visible, now.

I haven’t seen his image once at the venues. It is nowhere in the Main Press Center, that I have seen. I have heard zero references to him.

No equestrian statues of the Mao out front of National Stadium.

He is, apparently, on display; his embalmed body is on display in the middle of Tiananmen Square, and wikipedia has an entire entry on the Dead Chairman.

So, he can be seen there. They’ve also got that huge mug shot of him at the square, too.

He is most obvious on Chinese money. His face is on literally every paper bill. From the 1 yuan bill on up.

But other than that …

It seems as if some of the reverence for the Chairman is slipping away. I have been given a cheesy watch (cost, about 5 bucks) in which Mao is pictured in the middle of the watch and his waving arm serves as the second hand.

It is very silly. Which is the point, I suppose. China’s Washington/Lincoln/Roosevelt all rolled into one is now a part of kitsch.

Of course, the man was responsible for so many deaths, tens of millions, probably, putting him in the same league with Hitler and Stalin. Mao should be vilified, not glorified. And he probably will be, in another generation or two.

For now, we will settle for the knowledge of knowing his presence is waning, and he no longer gets what he wants. From his embalmed corpse (against his wishes to be cremated) and his waving arm on cheap watches.