TAIYUAN, Dec. 25 -- It's normal for star-struck youngsters in China to amass posters of their idols and scream at concerts, but a 66-year-old man should be too old for such craziness, shouldn't he?

Yang Jianguang from north China's Shanxi Province is equally, if not more, fervent when he talks about his "pop idol"-- Mao Zedong. Over the past four decades, Yang has not only purchased more than 50,000 items related to the late Chairman, but opened a private museum to honor him.

With the 121st anniversary of Mao's birth on Friday, Xinhua took the opportunity to visit the museum, which is barely the size of three basketball courts.

The red house by the national highway from Yang's hometown of Yuci to Shanxi's capital Taiyuan, became a museum in 2007, but as you step through the door, you feel like you are traveling back to the 1960s.

An entire wall is dedicated to more than 30,000 Mao badges, arranged according to where they were found and their date of manufacture.

The museum is also home to more than 50 versions of selected works of Mao Zedong. Other exhibits include letters and scripts, credentials, gramophone records and embroidery.

"I was born in the same year as the People's Republic of China was founded," Yang said.

The first item in his collection was a souvenir badge which he received in 1966. Then only a 17-year-old middle school student, Yang was a representative of Yuci received by the Great Helmsman in Tian'anmen Square. "I was so proud," he recalled. "He was nice, but as the founder of New China, I knew he was great. I never dreamed of being so close to such a giant."

Yang worked in Yuci civil affairs bureau before retirement. During his travels and business trips, he visited antique markets across China, adding to his collection. He got many items from friends and acquaintances.

His favorite item is an iron statue about 4.5 meters tall, which now stands outside the museum. "It was originally erected in a factory," he said. "Made in 1967 during the Cultural Revolution, it was quite rare as the material was iron."

He begged the head of the factory to sell it for eight years, but was refused numerous times. When the factory went bankrupt, Yang finally bought the statue.

Yang began planning the museum in 2006, when his daughters gave him 800,000 yuan (about 130,000 U.S. dollars) for the project. He then borrowed from friends and got a bank loan, ultimately investing more than 2 million yuan in the museum. His wife, a retired librarian, planned the layout.

The museum is open for free. To date it has received about 180,000 visitors and become quite an educational hotspot in Yuci. Many people volunteer there as cleaners or guides.

Chairman Mao Zedong has been remembered and revered by millions

of people in China and elsewhere in the world as a great

contemporary revolutionary as well as a great Chinese leader.

Yang's only concern now is a debt of more than 700,000 yuan, but he refuses to sell any of his collection, no matter what price he is offered.

"My collection is priceless," he said. "As for the debt, I will pay back slowly from our pension."