These women had just piled out of the bus at the Lijiang town square in Yunnan province, China, and wanted to commemorate the moment... with a shot of them in front of the Mao statue. It's about the only edifice of Mao that I remember seeing in three weeks of travel; Nobody much cares for him or his government. But for people from the countryside, it's just about the durn biggest, most impressive thingie that they'd ever seen. Patriotism always seems to run most strongly in country folk, doesn't it? China is a huge nation, and its dictators are lucky to be able to hold it together at all. The people say: "The sky is high, and the Emperor is far - So do whatever you want." It works: mutual benign neglect is the best relationship of a people and their government, IMO.