Mao on Fire: Vandal Damages Iconic Portrait

Police identified the vandal as Gu Hai Ou, a jobless 35-year-old from Urumqi, the capital city of Xinjiang. State-run Chinese media reported that Gu was detained shortly after he set the portrait on fire. Gu was treated in a hospital for mental illness last year. Police declined to say whether Gu would face criminal charges or remain in custody. Even though my knowledge of Chinese justice is scant, I suspect Beijing officials won't just let Gu go.

Witnesses at the Forbidden City saw flames and black smoke billowing from the bottom of the 200 square-foot portrait. Immediately, over 100 police officers rushed to the wall to extinguish the fire. Workers then used a crane to repair the damaged section of the portrait by sweeping the soot off of the the Chairman's upper torso. As though they were taking an order from rapper Jay-Z, officials quickly moved to "get that dirt off Mao's shoulder."

Xinhua reported Sunday that the Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City area were now being guarded by armed police. For the time being, tourists are forbidden from entering the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square remains open.

A similar event occurred in 1989 during the democracy protests when three men were arrested for throwing egg shells filled with red and black paint at the Mao portrait. One of the men, journalist Yu Dongyue, served 16 years in prison and was declared mentally ill when released in 2006.

Foreign newspapers quickly published news of the vandalism, but the story was conspicuously absent from mainland China's news publications. English-language newspapers China Daily and Shanghai Daily, as well as "the mouthpiece of the Communist Party," People's Daily, did not run articles on the incident. A Google News search for "Mao portrait" on Sunday yielded no results from China's English-language news sources, including state-run Xinhua.

The original portrait was painted by artist Zhang Zhenshi in 1950, one of Mao's first official portrait makers. The portrait was based on a earlier photograph of Mao and contrasted the recognizable Mao sideways pose. The frontal pose rendering shows both of Mao's ears to metaphorically suggest that the leader listens to all the people of China. David Barboza of the New York Times wrote that "if Mao's Little Red Book was the national bible, Mao's official portrait was the national stamp." The portrait can be found in government buildings, schools and homes all throughout China.