Many westerners were bewildered by Chairman Mao’s absence in the Olympic Opening Ceremony. This showed the West can not make sense of modern China. This also showed that there is still a long way to go for the Chinese and the west to fully understand each other.

The Little Red Notebook and the Mao Zedong's headshot on Australian newspapers were recurring images during the Beijing Olympic Games.

Not surprisingly, until arriving at the Beijing Olympic Village, many athletes and even journalists thought that their Chinese sporting rivals were still reciting The Little Red Notebook everyday before training.

The west is late in accurately decoding Chinese ideology. So the western world did not understand why the history-telling Olympic Opening Ceremony didn't mention Chairman Mao.

The omission is a natural choice in accord with Chinese thought but a leap of Communist faith according to the stereotypical western view.

When China refuses to eulogize democracy but rather insist on calling itself Communist, the west regards Chinese people as red in behavior and stubborn in mindset. Therefore, the cult of Mao, the Cultural Revolution, and the Great Leap Forward became China's images absorbed by the western world.