Standing amid the lush bamboo groves and rice paddies of northwestern Sichuan province, the U-shaped farmhouse is typical of the local architecture, with a wooden frame, stucco walls and a gray tile roof. Ten families have subdivided the 16 rooms of the 100-year-old structure into 32 cubicles, and its courtyard is dotted with drying pepper bunches and ears of corn. In the center of these crowded communal quarters stand three rooms unused except by the 60 or so visitors who turn up daily to see the birthplace of Deng Xiaoping. But even the smattering of photographs and old furniture on display in the farmhouse's "cultural center" constitutes more of a memorial than China's leader would like. When asked how he wanted his ancestral home in Paifang used, Deng replied, "Just keep it as it was, and let the peasants live there."
To say that Deng does not relish self-promotion is an understatement. He has never held any of the official titles usually associated with national leadership. "People wanted me to be Chairman of the party, but I told them I was too old for that," Deng recently told a TIME-sponsored Newstour. "Then people wanted me to take the post of President, and I said no, I wouldn't do that." The Chinese press refers to him simply as "paramount leader." But that modesty is hardly for lack of a life that has been interesting, both in the usual sense of the word or in that of the old curse ("May you live in interesting times").
Deng's long career has been a biographer's dream, a tumultuous charge through war and revolution, exhilarating political triumphs and equally humiliating downfalls, personal achievements and family tragedies. Through it all, drawing on seemingly limitless reserves of energy and wily resilience, the tenacious 4-ft. 11-in. politician has managed not only to endure but to prevail. Today, one year into his ninth decade, he stands at the zenith of his power as leader of the world's most populous nation and as progenitor of what he proudly calls its "second revolution."
Deng's sweeping vision for China is all the more remarkable for his lack of intellectual pretense. Unlike the late Mao Tse-tung, his mentor and eventual nemesis, Deng has never claimed to be either a scholar or a Marxist theoretician. Nor does he possess the studied mandarin sophistication of the late Premier Chou En-lai, another longtime comrade-in-arms. Not that Deng lacks for a keen intelligence or a world view. But what he has consistently sought to impose is a preference for gradual rather than sudden change and for pragmatism over doctrine. In discussing China's second revolution recently, Deng said, "If it could enable people to improve their lives gradually, then I think the policy itself is a sure guarantee of its continuity."