Once you get past all the scams and hucksters trying to milk you for every last dollar, China is a pretty cool place. In the Forbidden City a random young man with passable English randomly came up and started talking to me. He said he was and art student from the country on a school trip in Beijing to display some of their artwork. He asked if I wanted to see some of it I declined. He then asked what I was going to do in Beijing. I mentioned going to see the Great Wall. By coincidence his school had rented a minibus and was going there tomorrow. What great luck for me that I could join for only 160 Yuan. I quickly made my exit.
Day 4 Beijing
Possibly the most weirdest human impulse is to preserve the bodies of great leaders in death. The Egyptians did it. The Soviet Union famously preserved Lenin for a time. Today China is the one, if only country that continues this dastardly ritual.
At the south end of Tiananmen Square lies a squat square building done up in socialist style with forbidding columns, extended windows and a flat enfolding roof. After storing all my stuff in locker I passed through the security detail running a metal detector over anyone entering the square. I was so eager to get in line to see Mao because the Mausoleum was closing in less than 30 min, that I bumped the supervising policemen. He turned towards me slowly moving nothing as though he were on a pedestal. I looked at him and he stared back behind his wraparound sunglasses and oversized police cap. I gave a slight bow not knowing any Chinese and he turned slowly back. Nothing more than a gnat I was.
Beyond, a line snakes around the side of the building, inexorably moving forward like a slow-moving river. Piles of lighters form alongside as the men get rid of their last forbidden items. Past another security checkpoint people finally enter the building. A statue of the Great Leader dominates the first anteroom. Piles of flowers almost conceal it. Officials keep the crowd from stopping, pushing them forward into the next room where Mao’s body sits. Lying in a glass container all I see at first is a body draped in a flag. Coming around the side a head starts to take shape. It’s huge and the only flesh exposed. The flesh is pinkish with a reddish undercolour. It seems completely alien and unreal. Plastic in a way. But it’s only seconds and we're out the door, into the bright sunshine and past the inevitable souvenir stands selling bric-a-brac with Mao’s (younger) face on them.
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