A picture made available on 06 November 2012 of 87-year-old farmer Chao in his cave home or 'yaodong' where a poster of former leader Mao Zedong is pasted on his wall in the rural outskirts of Yan'an city, Shaanxi Province China, 05 November 2012. The 'yadong' or cave dwellings are typical in the plateaus of northern China in Shaanxi Province where many of Yan'an's rural population still live in. They are mostly carved out from the yellow earth of the Loess hillsides and are about seven to eight metres deep with height and width of three metres. Former Communist leader Mao Zedong and his comrades are known to have hid in these cave homes during the civil war between the communists and nationalists in 1936 to 1948 as they battle the Kuomintang forces. Chao has lived in his cave home in the Loess mountains of Yan'an for more than 60 years, mostly in poverty and hardship as a farmer and was one of the few to have lived through the period of turmoil during the civil war. China's new leaders slated to take over during the 18th National Congress beginning on 08 November are likely to face mounting pressures to tackle the country's rising income inequalities between urban and rural areas that are often the source of simmering resentment and growing unrests on the grassroot level.
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