Brief
Zedong or Shaoshan, the hometown of late Chinese leader Mao Zedong, has become an attractive tourist destination in recent years.The name of Mao Zedong, one of the founders of New China, also means fortune to locals.Shaoshan is about forty kilometers west of the county town of Xiangtan, Hunan Province. It is one of the seventy-two peaks of the majestic Mount Hengshan. According to legend, when King Yu was on his way south to inspect the flood control projects, he stopped here and played some ancient Shao music. The place was therefore called Shaoshan-Mount of the Shao Music. A village called Shaoshanchong at the foot of the mountain was where Mao Zedong (1893-1976), the late leader of China was born and grew up. An exhibition hall memorializing Mao's life and revolutionary activities has been built at the town of Shaoshan, formerly Shaoshanchong Village, and is now often called Zedong.

Reasons to visit
Shaoshan, a mountain village about 100km southwest of Changsha, with some fairly beautiful scenery and a once typically Hunan village atmosphere, has been irreparably changed by history. The tourist attractions in the village are highly propagandorial, but then this is all part and parcel of the Mao image. Loudspeakers will great you on arrival with revolutionary songs and speeches, the village is guarded by sleepily bored soldiers and the history is only partially represented at best. The revolutionary tourist attractions include the Former Residence of Mao Zedong (Mao zedong guju), the Ancestral Temple of the Mao Family, now Comrade Mao's Museum (Mao zedong tongzhi jinianguan), Stone Steles covered with Mao's poems, and a Revolutionary Martyr's Cemetery. The former residence is the most interesting. Entered through a courtyard, the house is of a sunny yellow, mud brick walls, with a nicely thatched roof, and is found on a wooded hillside, above some lush paddy fields. You can visit all of the 13 rooms inside, that include a kitchen, a dining room, three family bedrooms, a guest room and an ancestral hall. Within the rooms are various personal effects of Mao and his parents, as well as photos from Mao's life.