Seeing the Chairman

Got up at 6 this morning (ugh) to go see Chairman Mao Zedong's final resting place, just south of Tiananmen Square.

There was a mandatory bag-check, which de-railed our adventure, but the line moves quickly through the Mao-soleum, urged on by workers whose job it is to stand there all day and tell you to hurry up.

There were two halls: The first had a great statue of the Chairman, and a few people broke from the lines (that went around it) to stand in front of it with flowers and thrice-bow, as if they had incense at a Buddhist temple. I don't know the minute details of Chinese culture well enough to know how both practices are linked, but I thought it strange.

We were told to be very quiet, not to talk. Nobody did, among hundreds of people (including very small children) at 8AM. Apparently almost everyone wants to see this at some point.

The second hall: He lay within a crystal coffin, covered in a red sheet with a yellow hammer and sickle. The crystal coffin sat further within a glass case, and his face was lit. The closer I got, the less sure I was that he was real at all, and not wax--even Michelle commented that he looked like was probably made of wax. Neither of us know the embalming process well enough to know whether he was real or not, but Wikipedia and other internet sources don't mention that there is any question as to whether or not it's his real body, so I'm willing to buy it.

Either way, I was rather in awe. I understand why people were there to push me along--I wanted to stay and stare at the Chairman for a rather long time. But I think I more share the Chinese people's mixed respect for the man than most Americans, who (largely correctly) see him as a madman dictator.

The experience was a bit surreal, especially given that the Chariman may have been the first dead person I have ever seen in-real-life. Certainly as far as I can remember.