More On Mao
Friday, December 23rd, 2005We are grounded by the subway strike so have been reading more of the biography of Mao by authors Jung Chang, the author of the wonderful three-generation epic “Wild Swans,” and her British husband Jon Halliday.
What is especially interesting so far, is that this biography reveals much heretofor unknown information about Mao Tse Tung and the Cultural Revolution in China. Mao, for decades, held absolute power over the lives of one-quarter of the world’s population and was responsible for “well over 60 million deaths in peacetime,” more than any other twentieth-century leader. He used terrorism to try to establish China as a world-wide military nuclear power and to seat himself as it’s leader. To do this he wanted to draw draw Russia and America into a world war. Russia, hoping to appease Mao, allowed him to start the Korean War…Korea’s Kim even taking his orders from Mao. Mao sent thousands and thousands of troops into Korea thinking the Americans would never know the difference between Chinese and Koreans…and he was ready to sacrifice untold millions of people. He knew the Americans wouldn’t tolerate the body bags. Stalin (“The Master”) held the line, but when Stalin died, Khrushchev pulled the plug.
The detail illustrates Mao’s premeditated cruelty unprecidented in modern history. The authors had access to the Russian archives, interviewed hundreds of key people that are still alive…Russians, Chinese, Americans and anyone else who had a role during this time.
Values in China are carried forward by the culture…not by any ethical or civic standard. I could feel reverberations of China’s past during our several months in the country.
As soon as we returned to Bangkok from Bali Bob took a train to Chiang Mai for a trek in northern Thailand near Mae Son Hong. I stayed in Bangkok to have some ... 
In Shanghai, exploring the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree web site, I noticed a query from a young woman from Kaili in Guizhou Province who was offering to arrange a homestay in a Miao minority ... 
Travelled last p.m. from Tengshau to Yangzhau--train left at 7 p.m.--reported to be a 10 hr ride--however was aroused at 2 a.m. by the train mother that it was time to get off--so ... 
Walking by the Foreign Language Bookstore in Quindao, just up the street from my comfy clean hotel room that a tout from the railroad station led me to...80 yuan she says..that's about ... 
Xuindao is also spelled Quindao
From Beijing, I take an overnight train alone to Quindao. Quindao is a weekend getaway for well-to-do Communist party cadres and the train is brand spanking shiny new. ... 
Out of the train window, just before departure from Ulaan Bataar to Beijing on the last leg of our trans-siberian train trip, we watch about 30 Mongolians...brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents, parents and who ... 
Siberian countryside with endless kilometers of grassland and golden pine and white birch trees... small wooden, weathered, unpainted, picturesque, single story bungalows throughout Sibera with blue painted shutters-the banya (toilet and shower) in ... 
Back at Nikita's "resort" I spend half a day taking care of monkey business while Bob goes hiking around the island. It is the end of September but Siberia lives up to it's ... 
We take local electric trains three hours north from Warsaw to Ostroda where we book into the Park Hotel on a lovely lake that caters to German-speaking tourists many of whom are ... 
We are out of the unusually hot and humid Czech Republic. After an all night train we are in cool Krakow Poland. We accept an offer by a young English speaking man ... 
My medications, that had gotten held up in Custums in Frankfurt, finally arrived in Berlin via fedex. We had planned on taking the train through Austria and Hungary but now we are ... 
Bob and I said goodbye to Jana who would leave later in the day on a train to Shanghai and then home from Hong Kong. The next day we took a train to ... 
September 24 2002
Bob left Hanoi right away on the train for Sapa near the Chinese border to do some trekking among the colorful minority villages and then to spend three days in Halang Bay ... 
In a monsoon rainstorm we climbed off the train in this cool wooded hill station built during the British occupation. The locals laughed (with me) at my little paper sun umbrella I carried that ... 
Train Trip to Nafplion
The next morning we walked to Syntagma Plaza to took the metro to the port at Piraeus for departure to some of the Greek islands by ferry. But we had just ... 
Took a train to the Cinque Terre (Five Lands..or villages) area on the northern Italian Riviera.
The Ligurian coast between Cinque Terre and Portovenere is a cultural landscape of great scenic and cultural value. The ... 
Took the train from Barcelona to Avignon in the Provence area in the south of France. Stayed at Hotel Mignon on rue Joseph-Vernet. Cute little French hotel room but the smallest loo ... 
Zoe