Xiqiantou, China - He wielded enormous power as China's fearsome security chief, but at Zhou Yongkang's ancestral village, his relatives' tombs are now backdrops for selfies and curious visitors crush the hedges around the family home.
Zhou, who was jailed for life Thursday after a secret corruption trial, came from humble beginnings.
Born to an eel farmer in the sleepy community of Xiqiantou, he embarked on a journey through the oil industry to the apex of political authority and a place on the Communist Party's elite Politburo Standing Committee.
His role heading the Central Politics and Law Commission put him in charge of China's police, courts, jails and domestic surveillance. Shielded from scrutiny by a vast network of lieutenants in China's internal security network, Zhou was seen as untouchable.
But since his career crashed into ignominy as the most prominent target of the Communist Party's much-publicised anti-corruption drive, his birthplace has become a venue for political rubber-necking, rather than respect and deference.
Xiqiantou, outside Wuxi city in the eastern province of Jiangsu, is surrounded by industrial estates and new housing developments, and BMWs and Audis have to slow on the narrow lanes for clattering agricultural vehicles puffing black smoke into the humid air.
The imposing black and white Zhou family compound, complete with a tranquil moat, stands grandly at the centre of the village.
"Hey, see if you can get your camera through there," a man shouted to a group of young women, pointing to a black latticed window on the surrounding wall, before flattening a perimeter hedgerow in his quest for a clear shot.
His friends struck high-spirited poses as they took pictures of each other.
AFP
