A side trip from Shanghai recently took me to Xikou near the port city of Ningbo in Zhejiang province. An otherwise non-descript place in the countryside, its claim to fame rests on it being the birth-place of Chiang Kai-shek, who ruled China in the 1930s and 1940s. Tour coaches disgorge loads of visitors, mostly Chinese and Taiwanese but also some other foreigners, who travel here to view the Chiang family residences.

The residences have largely survived the upheavals of the Chinese civil war and the Cultural Revolution. Parts that were damaged have been restored. In 1949 Mao had instructed that his arch-enemy's properties in his home village not be violated, suggesting he saw political value in such restraint.

Indeed, the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party, despite their hostility, maintained on-off secret contacts during Mao's rule, and reportedly held inconclusive secret peace talks in the early 1960s. When China plunged into the chaotic Cultural Revolution in the mid-1960s, the People's Liberation Army made Xikou a protected area, though official communist propaganda continued to vilify Chiang as a traitor.

The main residence and three other buildings which the Chiang family used are scattered in the vicinity of a small river and command a good view of the picturesque hills near by. There are no slogans, no propaganda, no attempt to besmirch Chiang. The buildings include the quarters of Chiang's eldest son, Ching-kuo. His mother, Chiang's first wife, was killed in a Japanese air raid on Xikou in 1939. A small stone tablet erected by Chiang Ching-kuo bears an inscription vowing revenge.

By and large, the complex is spared the crass commercialization of tourist sites by the local authorities that one often encounters in China, except for one unfortunate lapse: Next to one of the buildings is an enclosure for dog fights: for 100 yuan (S$22) you can watch a fight for 8 minutes, a spectacle at odd surely with the reflective ambience of the historic site.

There are indications that many ordinary Chinese now view Chiang as a nationalist and an important figure in modern Chinese history. We asked our young driver, a Ningbo resident, what he thought of the generalissimo.