連傅高義和瀋志華都相信這本書中關於醫療的部分，至於說其他部分，那就仁者見仁，智者見智了。
「主席真偉大，哪兒都偉大，真讓人陶醉！」

Written my Mao Zedong's personal doctor, this book gives an interesting and relatively unbiased (at least compared to other books on the leader in which authors focus not on Mao but on their personal hatred or admiration for him) account of interactions with Mao.

In addition to the standard biographical facts, this book includes some interesting medical testimonies about the leader's health including clarification on which STDs Mao had and did not have, and the fact that he never brushed his teeth. The discussion of his embalmbment was also quite interesting.

* 500 pages: interminable list of different named cadres looking embarrassed, scared, or nonplussed, with no characterisation or distinguishing marks given. (There's a glossary, use it.)

* 200 pages: the exact change in volume of Mao's piss. Li hiding from Jiang in a militarised textile factory for 3 months, not seeing his family / sent to Jiangxi to do hard labour for a year.

* 63 pages: invaluable historical documentation of vice, ignorance, cowardice, brutality, and goofiness. The worst of the emperors, which is saying a lot.

n  Mao spent much of his time in bed or lounging by the side of a private pool, not dressing for days at a time. He... rinsed his mouth with tea [instead of brushing], and slept with country girls... He did not bathe, preferring a rubdown with hot towels, although this made it hard for Dr. Li to stop the spread of venereal infections among his female companions...
I cautioned him that herpes was contagious and could spread through sexual contact, but he ignored my warnings. He did not think the problem was so bad... The illness, transmitted by Mao, was a badge of honor, testimony to their close relations with the chairman... "a harem of three thousand concubines"... When I told Mao about the veneration being accorded his mango, he laughed. He had no problem with the mango worship and seemed delighted by the story... He followed no schedule except on May Day and National Day and on the rare occasions when he received foreign visitors. Then he had to dress, taking barbiturates to control his anxiety.

[The "cultural work troupe"] provided entertainment not only for the Central Garrison Corps but also for Mao. The troupe contained a pool of young women, selected for their looks, their artistic talent, and their political reliability. Over time, the role of these dancing parties, and of some of the young women who participated in them, became too obvious for me to ignore.

[Mao's concubine] had become Mao’s gatekeeper... One day in June 1976, when Hua Guofeng had come to see Mao, Zhang Yufeng had been napping and the attendants on duty were afraid to rouse her. Two hours later, when Zhang had still not gotten up, Hua, second in command only to Mao, finally left without seeing his superior...
n

There's enough of Li's own resentments and grudges and worry for his family to make it feel authentic.

n  In 1958–59, the food shortage hit, causing further hardship for my mother. Lillian still ate in the dining hall at Zhongnanhai, and I joined her when I was there. There was no meat[!]

...I devoted my professional life to Mao and China, but now I am stateless and homeless, unwelcome in my own countryn

His great-grandfather was physician to the Chinese emperor. He died just after publishing this.


Peng Dehuai is one of the only people to come out of this looking good. Conversely, Deng mostly just keeps his mouth shut for 30 years, biding time.

What difference can really there be among "left" and "right" Maoists, who all agree that what Mao says is law? Left Maoism: "Socialist weeds are better than capitalist wheat".

n  Everyone was dressing like soldiers then, including Jiang Qing. n

One odd thing: he keeps on insisting that the psychotic Jiang Qing was out to get him / to hurt Wang's faction by getting rid of him. But the factions are constantly mixing and she retains him as her physician. (Maybe just looking for an opportunity.)

n  Jiang Qing left Mao’s room triumphant and invited us to join her to celebrate with maotai, peanuts, and roast pork. “We are victorious,” she said, offering a toast. “Bottoms up. I will become a bludgeon, ready to strike.” It was an unpleasant experience, and I was very upset.n

The original Maoists are a weird bunch, not at all simple thugs. Much of their evil was routed through passive aggression, perverting evidence, falsifying testimonies: a legalistic modus operandi. The foreword suggests that cowardice is the wrong way to interpret the silence and complicity of the top cadres: Mao was instead "relying on the Confucian unwillingness of those around him to confront their superior". An amusing ideological victory for the old patriarch.

I was also surprised by some of the lifespans involved. Wang lived to 99, and the great monster managed 84 despite chain-smoking, being riddled with VD, and antiquated medicine. 1974:

n  Shortly before midnight on September 8, 1976, the doctors had administered an intravenous injection of shengmai san, a traditional Chinese herbal concoction... during episodic emergencies we relied on the American-made respirator that Henry Kissinger had sent in 1971 after his secret mission to China... I touched the gums lightly and some pus oozed out. He had never complained of discomfort, even though an infection of that sort ordinarily causes considerable pain. I suspect that Mao had a high tolerance of discomfort and so hated doctors and illness that he often endured his pain in silencen

Li shows Mao as having barely a single noble impulse over twenty two years. All the same, you can see what people liked about him: in contrast to his writing and his policies, he was pretty earthy and informal and pragmatic and scruffy, and (as in his writing) he was actually idealistic and stoic.

n  when I told Mao the story of my friend’s encouragement to offer Yan a bribe, Mao laughed uproariously. “You bookworm,” he chided me. “Why are you so stingy? You don’t understand human relations. Pure water can’t support fish. What’s so strange about giving someone a present? Didn’t Guo Moruo give me a watch during the Chongqing negotiations...

Mao continued to talk excitedly about the latest production statistics. He had become curious about the works of the Soviet economist Leontief, wanting to compare economic organization in the Soviet Union with the new economic structures in China, and asked Chen Boda, Tian Jiaying, and Deng Liqun to join him in Guangzhou to study Leontief’s book on political economy.

The United States has also trained many skilled technicians for China,” Mao continued, a remark that would have been unthinkable for ordinary Chinese. The United States was still publicly reviled as China’s Enemy Number One and to praise it was counterrevolutionary. “So all of you belong to the British-American school,” Mao said. “I like people trained in England and the United States"n

He is an extraordinary lesson in what happens when you operate on the level of social reality (what people think, manipulating animal spirits) and float free of reality.

n  What he learned during his visit was conclusive. High-quality steel can be produced only in huge modern factories using reliable fuel, like coal. But he gave no order to halt the backyard steel furnaces. The horrible waste of manpower and materials, the useless output from the homemade furnaces, was not his main concern. Mao still did not want to do anything to dampen the enthusiasm of the massesn

I think this is one of the only laudable emotions we see:

n  [They were looking for the Buddhist] shrine his mother used to visit when he was sick, where she burned incense and fed the ashes to her son, certain of their curative powers. The tiny shrine, like the tombstone, had disappeared, torn down only months before with the establishment of the commune. The bricks were needed to build the backyard steel furnaces, and the wood had been used as fuel. Mao had fallen silent on our walk. The destruction of the shrine had saddened himn

It's pretty crazy how much of policy was based off unrecorded offhand remarks. The end of the Great Leap, immediately after the shrine moment:

n  if you cannot produce good steel, you might as well quit.” With these words, Shaoshan probably became the first village in the country to abolish the public dining halls, halt its water conservancy project, and begin dismantling the backyard steel furnaces. Mao’s comments were never publicly released, but they spread quickly through word of mouth. Soon many areas were dismantling their projectsn

And of course he lost control of the Red Guards almost immediately after setting them off:

n  Liu Shaoqi was being “struggled against” outside the State Council auditorium. I ran there immediately... [he and his wife were] pushed and kicked and beaten by staff members from the Bureau of Secretaries. Liu’s shirt had already been torn open, and a couple of buttons were missing, and people were jerking his head around by the hair…Finally, they forced him down and pushed his face toward the ground until it was nearly touching the dirt, kicking him and slapping him in the face... Liu Shaoqi was already an old man by then, almost seventy, and he was our head of state...

Wang was in a difficult position. He could not inform Mao directly of the violence in Zhongnanhai. To make such a report would be to oppose a decision of the increasingly powerful Central Cultural Revolution Small Group, and no one would dare risk criticizing the rising leftists... "They just don’t listen to me,” [Mao] complained when I had finished, referring to the Central Cultural Revolution Small Group, which included his wife

n

His authority evaporated completely at the moment of his death, with the factions bickering in the room with his body, and his written instructions to be cremated completely ignored - at the same time as his name became a holy relic of rectitude, still finding service today.

n  tAltogether we injected a total of twenty-two liters, some six more than the formula called for, hoping that the extra would provide some additional guarantee... The results were shocking. Mao's face was bloated, as round as a ball, and his neck was now the width of his
head. His skin was shiny, and the formaldehyde oozed from his pores like perspiration. His ears were swollen, too, sticking out from his head at right angles. Somehow we had to restore Mao to his original appearance, but there was no way to remove the formaldehyde. “It’s all right if his body stays bloated,” I said. “His clothes will cover it. But we had better try to fix his face and neck.” “Maybe if we massage them we can squeeze some of the liquid back into the body,” Zhang suggested. The team started working on Mao’s face with a towel and cotton balls, trying to force the liquid down into the body. When Chen pressed a little too hard, a piece of skin on Mao’s right cheek broke offn

The situation at Chairman Mao's court was so tense that this reads like a novel

The most memorable part of this biography which I remember to this day are the salacious details of the ballroom dances organized for Mao's benefit with poor innocent country girls, whose parents were only too happy to make whatever contribution they could for the benefit of Chairman Mao. Refusing treatment for his VDs, Li (his personal doctor) would have to prescribe antibiotics to all the girls that he slept with. Who would have thought even someone like Chairman Mao? Pretty sure this one wasn't in the communist party doctrine anywhere.

Just finished The Private Life of Chairman Mao by Dr Li Zhisui, the dictator’s unwilling personal physician. Slightly depressing but had me fascinated throughout - highly recommended reading.

Happy to have found it. Absolutely unputdownable. Saw dreams about this book and Mao's court in Zhongnanhai.

Mao’s private doctor wrote and published this book in 1994 before his death in 1995. It about his experiences with one of the most important figures in modern world history. All readers should question if it is accurate and unbiased. I did as well. My answer is that I just don’t know. However Li was certainly Mao’s doctor during the years presented (1954-1976), and on a high level of the inner circle. His photos and intimate experiences convey little doubt (at least to me) of his close access to Mao. Whatever Li's personal or political motives were to write this book are beyond my ability to discern.

Born in Beijing 1919, Dr. Li was with Mao for over 22 years. They shared meals and details of their personal lives. It’s probably one of the closest pictures of the Chairman you can get without having been there yourself. Undoubtedly there are other accounts written in Chinese I cannot access. For Mao anecdotes, conversations, travel accommodations, sexual habits and hygiene, addictions to cigarettes and sleeping pills it is a convincing primary source. Mao was a rebel and Li was a true believer from initial employment with Mao until his gradual disillusionment. Li trained in Australia and later emigrated to the USA.

Although Mao espoused Chinese traditional medicine he chose western trained doctors for his personal care. Li produced a clear portrait of his former employer from a few years after Mao’s ascension until his death. If you are interested in Mao as a man you cannot forego reading this. It is exciting as well as terrifying. From Mao’s disastrous economic Great Leap Forward in agriculture and industry (’58-62) to his manipulation of fourth wife Jiang Qing to attack foes during the Cultural Revolution (’66-76), this is strong material. You will also learn how Mao liked his food cooked (spicy, Hunan style...mm mm good).

So why did Li write this book? It is said that Mao's wife Jiang accused Li of poisoning her in 1968, a scary predicament. It is known Li left for the USA in 1979 shortly after Mao died. He helped to preserve Mao’s body which is still displayed in a mausoleum on Tiananmen Square. Li was an early convert to communism but later changed his mind based on the events around him. He came to be frightened by his proximity to Mao's absolute power and ruthlessness and burned his notebooks during the later years. It's an important account that will continue to be referenced by authors in the future as it has been in the past.

This is one of the best China books I've read and I've read about 50 of them. It's long and very involved, but written in a clear and fluid style. It is, quite simply, fascinating; brimful with interesting episodes and tidbits impossible to find anywhere else. Details about Mao's illnesses, drug addictions, sex life, and death are particularly salient, while figures and topics you can find in nearly any China book (Jiang Qing, Lin Biao, the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, etc.) are presented in a whole new light.

Penned by an erudite and Western-educated man who saw and spoke with the chairman nearly every day he was in power, the Private Life of Chairman Mao is more engaging than most "standard" Mao biographies, which is, of course, because it is a first-hand, behind-the-scenes account. It may take you a while to get through it, and you may wish to supplement it with one of those "standard" biographies, but if you've got a bit of mental stamina or consider yourself a serious China watcher, this narrative is a must.

More of a memoir of Dr. Li’s life in Mao’s “communist court.” Didn’t disappoint though - lots of intrigue and backstabbing as was par for the course throughout the Great Leap Forward and the cultural revolution.

An engaging description of life in Mao's inner circle. Although one can question the exact accuracy of Li Zhizui's account of things. Whether it's all accurate, he has faulty memory, his editors pushed him into embellishing certain things, or he's just lying, it's impossible to know with certainty that this was the true political dynamic within the CCP Politburo during this time.

In any case, it's fascinating to see the history of twentieth century China be recounted by someone whose profession puts him completely outside history or politics: he's simply a doctor, and that's all he ever wanted to be. However through a series of circumstances he becomes enveloped into an incredibly stressful political sphere that forced him to compromise his happiness and integrity. His description of Mao is beyond fascinating, but perhaps even better is his antagonistic relationship with Jiang Qing. Every mention of her in this text paints her as this terrible maleficent person. At times I genuinely felt for this poor man who had to put up with everybody else's BS.

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