1997 saw the demise of a great man - Deng Xiaoping. Deng is a great leader who, despite being a communist and various human rights abuses, has delivered China from a Third World basket case into a new emerging tiger economy.
Deng's birthplace was Paifang Village in Xiexing township, Guang'an County, in the province of Sichuan. His childhood home was a traditional compound with one-storied housed surrounding a courtyard on three sides. It was in these tree-shaded, tile-roofed buildings that his forefathers had lived for three generations and that Deng Xixian - the future Deng Xiaoping - was born on August 22,1904.
