Madame Mao

Mao Zedong's (毛泽东) third wife Jiang Qing (江青) must be one of the most vilified persons in recent Chinese history. And perhaps for good reasons too.

According to The White-Haired Girl, Bittersweet Adventures of a Little Red Soldier by Jaia Sun-Childers and Douglas Childers, Jiang was "the White-Boned Demon, hated by all, pitied by none. She had sat at Chairman Mao's feet, like Lucifer at the right hand of God. And she had stolen heaven and plunged our motherland into darkness."

Together with others in the infamous Gang of Four (四人帮), Jiang's "criminal excesses" flooded gossip vines.

For instance, Jiang reportedly "had a stable of male prostitutes serving her perverted whims day and night."

"To retain her youth, she had drawn blood from the veins of young soldiers and injected it into her own."

"She had fed exclusively on bear paws, live monkey brains, and rare green-haired turtles, and had sat to shit on a swan-feather toilet seat."

Were these things true? We will probably never find out. But given how much hatred she had generated, it perhaps comes as no surprise that people would rather believe the worst.