ABSTRACT
This chapter considers Mao Zedong's home province and the perceptions other Han Chinese have had and have of the land of Mao's birth. The Mandarin dialect that has most influenced Xiang is Southwestern Mandarin, the form spoken in Hubei Province, directly to the north of Hunan. The Gan and Xiang people share a long border, similar geographic environments, and many common historical experiences, but they consider themselves rather distinct. Coexisting along with Old Xiang but primarily spoken in the larger cities and towns, New Xiang has evolved much further than Old Xiang from the Middle Chinese norm. Shuangfeng is often chosen as a good example of an Old Xiang subdialect. The fact that Zedong began his long political career as something of a Hunanese nationalist was rather effectively struck from the record after he rose to national leadership. Traditional Hunan had a wide variety of folk customs not observed in the same way elsewhere in China.
