MAO ZEDONG MEMORIAL HALL

Siobhan and I slept in on the Tuesday morning on which we planned to be the first people in line at the Mao Zedong Memorial Hall in Beijing. The embalmed remains of the Chinese leader have been on display here since shortly after his death in 1976. The hall is currently open from 8 a.m. to noon every day except Monday. Admission is free.

By the time we crossed under the underpasses, arrived in Tiananmen Square, passed through the security barrier, underwent at least two security checks, and checked our knapsacks (for about $2.50 Cdn. each) in the special baggage depot, the line of people three abreast, waiting to pay their respects to Mao Zedong, stretched around two and half sides of the big, gray building. I estimate that that there were at least six hundred people ahead of us (early on this weekday morning). They covered only a small fraction of the space available for people to line up.

Actually the term, "lining up", is not a good description. "Walking up" would be more accurate. The line this morning moves almost as fast as a normal walk. It took only a few minutes until we passed through yet another security check, as we entered the building. All the while visitors are in line, they are repeatedly advised to remove their hats, be silent, and show proper respect. They are also given a chance to buy a yellow chrysanthemum for three yuan (50 cents Cdn.). A lot of the Chinese visitors buy a flower. Siobhan and I do too.

In the entrance hall, there is a big stone statue of a seated Chairman Mao. In front of him are a forest of yellow chrysanthemums. The Chinese visitors, who bought them, go in turn up to the display, bow slightly three times, deposit their flowers, among thousands of others, and then rejoin the queue. Siobhan and I likewise go up to the display, bow slightly three times, and deposit ours.

I try to make a comment to Siobhan but am shushed up by an attendant.

In the next room, Mao's body is laid out in a big glass case. The body seems well-preserved but a ghastly orange light is shining on Mao's face (to try to make him seem more alive?)

In seconds, we are outside again in the square. It has taken less than 10 minutes to process more than six hundred people through the mausoleum, which means that about fifteen thousand people go through a (half-)day or about 4,695,000 per year. That's quite a lot of people, even in a country as populous as China. I have been through Sir John A. Macdonald's home in Kingston, Ontario, where only a handful of people went through in an hour.

Why do so many ordinary Chinese people make the pilgrimage to the mausoleum? Is it because the Memorial Hall is on the must-do list of tourist sites when one is visiting Beijing? Is it because the Chinese traditionally revere ancestors and make a practice of visiting the tombs of famous persons in Chinese history, like Sun Yat Sen's elaborate burial site in Nanjing? Is it to pay respects to the man who led the reunification of China after one hundred years of colonial subjugation, civil war, and chaos? Is it because ordinary Chinese associate Chairman Mao with socialism and they yearn for the revolutionary times when he was alive, which are quite different from today's focus on making profits?

It may be all the above. But I hope it is principally the last one.