China: Mao's Legacy -

: He remembered standing in Tiananmen Square. The electric roar of the crowd as Mao proclaimed that the Chinese people had finally stood up. The end of centuries of foreign humiliation. Hope was a physical thing then, thick in the air.

Chen’s task was to help draft the initial bureaucratic summaries of the Chairman's legacy. But how could a single brush stroke capture a man who was both a god and a hurricane? The Two Faces of the Mountain China: Mao's legacy

Old Chen, a veteran clerk of the Central Committee, stared at the blank sheet of paper before him. His brush, heavy with rich red ink, hovered in the air. Outside, the nation was holding its breath. The "Great Helmsman," Chairman Mao, was dead. : He remembered standing in Tiananmen Square

Chen closed his eyes, and his mind drifted back over the decades. Hope was a physical thing then, thick in the air

: He remembered the sea of Red Guards. Young boys and girls waving the Little Red Book, screaming slogans. Chen had hidden his ancient poetry books under the floorboards to save them from the flames of the Cultural Revolution. He had watched his own brother, a quiet schoolteacher, being dragged away to a re-education camp. The Unending Echo Chen opened his eyes. The room was deathly silent.

With a hand that trembled slightly from age and the weight of history, Chen finally lowered his brush to the paper.