Photos

The house where Mao Zedong was born in Shaoshan, a small village in Hunan province.
The idyllic setting and maintainance of the house of course stand in stark contrast to its surroundings, which are not kept as nice. The birthplace of China's "great helmsman" or "the butcher from Shaoshan" (according to preference) has of course become a tourist attraction after reforms and the area is full of vendors selling diverse Mao paraphernalia, such as statues, lighters, DVDs etc. picturing Mao the man.
For an interesting biography of how Mao and his brutal socialist regime killed or facilitated the death of 60 million Chinese in peace time, a recommended reading is Jun Chang and Jon Halliday's "Mao - the unknown story". (Of course many Chinese would not agree with the authors' conclusions, but that's a matter of a debate, I choose not to have here after similar ones concerning my Tibet pictures).