Illuminating insights into the foreign policies of late Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong are blended with personal anecdotes of the great man's colorful life in a new book, "Days That Changed the World," written by his granddaughter Kong Dongmei, writes Lu Feiran

Sitting quietly smiling, she looks no different from any other well-educated 30-something woman. She introduces herself as Kong Dongmei, not as the granddaughter of Mao Zedong, founder and late chairman of New China, who she also is.
Kong came to the city for the Shanghai Book Fair to promote her new work, "Days That Changed the World," which provides a vivid picture of Mao's foreign policy after the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
Besides that, the book also tells some personal stories about Mao, such as the story of his first love.
"My grandpa fell in love with a girl named Wang Shigu," Kong reveals. "But his parents forced the young couple to part and insisted he marry a girl surnamed Luo."
In Kong's eyes, Mao was a great man, but he was also real. "He was a son, a husband and a father firstly, a statesman secondly," Kong stresses.
To her disappointment, most Chinese people know about her grandfather only from boring school textbooks, and that is why Kong decided to record the story of her grandfather as she knew him.
"I want to show the younger generation a vivid and brand-new Mao Zedong, rather than the man from their textbooks," says Kong. "I believe, for ordinary people, culture is much easier to understand than the politics of these important historical figures."
Born in 1972 in Shanghai, Kong lived with He Zizhen, her grandmother and Mao's third wife, until her father took her to Beijing in 1979, three years after Mao's death. Her father died in 1984.
After she was born, Li Min, her mother, showed Mao her photo. Mao then named her as "Dongmei." "Dong" came from Mao's own name, while "mei" was the Chinese for plum blossom, Mao's favorite flower.
"It's a pity that I could only 'meet' my grandpa through the photos," says Kong. "So many people love him, admire him, but as his granddaughter, I never got the chance to meet him."
After graduating from the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Kong worked for Taikang Life Insurance Co Ltd. After that, she went to study in the United States in 1999, earning a master's degree in international politics at the University of Pennsylvania.
She opened her own publishing house in Beijing in 2002, after she returned from the US, and published a series of "red classics" on the history of Chinese revolution.
Kong wrote "Open the Old Family Album - My Grandfather Mao Zedong" in 2004. The book is mainly about the story between Mao and He, his third wife.
"My grandma seldom talked about Mao at home," she says. "Her complicated life experience was beyond words."
He gave birth to six children when she lived with Mao from 1928 to 1937. Among them five died. Li, Kong's mother, was the only one known to have survived. "What would a woman feel if she lost five children out of her six?" Kong sighs.
Kong thinks she's much luckier than her grandma and mother, since she can choose the life she wants and likes.
Still single, Kong is now planning to translate her books into foreign languages to help overseas readers have a better understanding of Mao.
Kong also plans to write more new books within the next five years, but the themes have yet to be decided upon.
"I want to try some new topics, but I know people would rather see me write about my grandpa," says Kong, still quietly smiling.