China can seem of many minds about Chairman Mao, who oversaw a period of mass famine and persecution. His portrait still adorns the money and still hangs exaltedly on the gates to the Forbidden City. But officially, at least, China has tried to tamp down enthusiasm for his ideas. Just a few weeks ago, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao referred to the Cultural Revolution as a “historical tragedy” and a “mistake” that ought not be repeated.

But amid the dizzying changes and surging consumerism of modern China, whose temples are Louis Vuitton boutiques, a different view of Mao can be found among many young people of Ms. Sun’s ilk — young, cool, weird, out of sync with their Burberry-chasing peers. Mao, chided by his own successors in power, becomes for these hipsters an imaginary figure who stands for equality, authenticity and a higher purpose — who embodies the opposite of what they loathe in the present.

Far from the capital city, in the megalopolis of Chongqing, a corruption scandal has all China talking (and micro-blogging). At its center is the charismatic leader Bo Xilai, and among what is now officially seen as his missteps was his flirtation with Maoist revivalism.

Yet what can strike a visitor to Beijing is that Mr. Bo is not alone in his nostalgia.

Lau Hiu Fai is 33 and twice removed from the reality of the Maoist era. He was born after most of it, and in Hong Kong. He became a Beijinger eight years ago. But he has already established himself as one of the better practitioners of a growing phenomenon: the Mao-era vintage store.

Beijing overflows with them. They sell old wares from that period as well as retro brands, like Forever bicycles and Warrior shoes, that evoke the era.