AsiaNews: Mao Zedong, who tried to destroy religion in his lifetime, is now worshiped like a god. Especially in Hunan, the province where he came from, Buddhist and Taoist temples often have a statue of the Great Helmsman, covered with yellow cloth (the color of the emperor and the Buddha), where incense, fruit, paper money (false) are offered as if to a god or the spirit of an ancestor.
According to Radio Free Asia there some wealthy people have even turned one room of their home into “private chapel”, occupied by a statue of Mao.
This veneration of the statues of Mao and his mausoleum in Tiananmen Square in Beijing are much more evident on his birthday, December 26, the date on which he was born in 1893. More on this here.
