Lost on Planet China - J. Maarten Troost [15]
I absorbed this celebration of Socialist Realism, the architectural style that glorifies the proletariat by making a mere individual seem very, very small. As I neared the entrance to the mausoleum, I was approached by a young man in a honey-colored Members Only jacket.
“You cannot take a bag here,” he said in English, pointing to my daypack.
“Can I leave it someplace?” I asked.
“I will take you,” he offered.
I had no idea whether he was a policeman, an employee of the mausoleum, a hustler, or just a helpful fellow looking to assist a befuddled foreigner. I followed him, and suppressing the dread I felt as he directed me through six lanes of traffic, I became his shadow, which was okay because, as I’d already discovered, the Chinese are very accommodating when it comes to infringing their personal space. He led me toward a building where I could drop off my bag.
“Xie xie,” I said, mangling the word for “thank you.”
“You have money?” he said after we had darted back across the road.
“Yes, I kept my wallet. Thanks for asking.”
“Twenty yuan,” he said with a hopeful smile.
I gave him ten, which was far more than his service required, but I was new to China and hadn’t yet acquired the flinty-eyed determination to haggle for the Chinese price. I took my place in line; it was still early, before 9 A.M., and by Chinese standards the line remained relatively short. Perhaps 500 of us waited for a chance to gaze upon the Chairman. Meanwhile, over a loudspeaker we listened to a recounting of the life and times of Mao Zedong while waiting for the grim-faced guards in crisp blue uniforms and white gloves to let us in. Actually, I had no idea what they were talking about over the loudspeaker. Perhaps the voice was informing us that there was a blue-tag special on Mao watches in aisle three of the gift shop. Who could say? Certainly not me.
A flower vendor sold fake roses, and a fair portion of the waiting crowd purchased them. I guessed that most of the visitors were from somewhere in the far hinterlands of China. Having lived in Sacramento, I can recognize a fellow yokel anywhere.
Finally, we surged up the steps and entered. Inside, we were greeted by a white statue of the Great Helmsman, and it was here that visitors deposited their roses, bowing deeply as they did so. Mao as Buddha. I wondered what happened to the daily pile of plastic flowers. I guessed they were probably swept up and sold to the next group. Dillydallying wasn’t encouraged, and the crowd shuffled forward, carried by its own momentum. In the adjoining room lay Mao himself, tucked under a cozy red flag featuring the hammer and sickle.
Typically, I find the presence of dead people a little unsettling, but there was nothing ghoulish or macabre about Mao. This is because he is orange—a festive playful orange, toylike, as if he were nothing more than a waxen action figure in repose. And that is probably all that he is after thirty years of death. I almost felt sorry for him, a diabolical tyrant reduced to a morbid curio. But then I noticed the reaction of my Chinese companions. I had expected some good-natured joshing—Look how orange he is. Do you think he’s a fake? It’s so hard to tell in China. Mao had been quite dead now for thirty years. Surely, one could poke a little fun at the fat despot. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. People bowed before him. Some of the older ones even wept. They couldn’t have been more reverent if they were viewing their own grandfathers, a spell broken only by our emergence into the next room, the souvenir emporium, where we were encouraged to buy authentic, straight-from-the-source, Mao watches and Mao cuff links and Mao portraits and,