China’s memories of Mao fade to nostalgia 50 years after his death

The crimson flags on Nanjie village’s “East is Red” Square hang limp in the sweltering summer heat as a trickle of tourists take photos with a towering statue of Chairman Mao Zedong, still gleaming white almost 50 years after he died. The Great Helmsman, who died September 9 1976,