Communism Makes a Face-Plant into the Capitalist Pie

So Mao.

What can I say.  Everyone is right when they say the guy was short, and his environment doesn’t help. It makes him seem remarkably small in stature. splayed out in his glass coffin, encompassed in a glass room, surrounded by opulent decorations, multiple guards, and a rope. And I can’t say for sure if it is just a result of the preservatives that have allowed him to keep his general form and features for the past 34 years since his death, or if part of his power was the result of him resembling something picturesque and unearthly but his body looks like a backlight Madame Tussauds wax sculpture. Being shuffled through a long line of people waiting, though not always patiently, to get a glimpse of the Chairman, was for sure a little creepy, a lot surreal, but mostly just totally cool. It was like being able to witness the inner workings of a well oiled bureaucratic machine with a strikingly Orwellian feel. Big Brother was most definitely watching. Somehow they have set it up so there is only time to pay your respects quickly -- no time to contemplate what this leathery old body is meant to symbolize, or reflect or question anything -- before you find yourself in the Mao Memorial gift shop, the point where Communism makes a face plant into the capitalist pie.

Across the Street from Tianamen Square is the Forbidden City, which is also quite spectacular to see once you’ve made your way through the all the stalls selling kitch. It’s kind of what you would imagine an enclosed imperial city to be, complete with a beautiful garden where the emperor chose girls for his harem and could catch a few rays while the concubines fanned themselves under a banyan tree.