The Great Helmsman Mao Ze Dong is still deeply revered today by the Chinese people;sometime ad nauseum. Chairman Mao went from dweeby librarian to dweeby dictator (although those pictures of him in his commi suit in the 40s are pretty cool lookin).Now, I'm by no means a Mao fan (even though I do have a 10,000 years red t-shirt). I mean there was the great famine, the cultural revolution, and that whole let's kill every sparrow in China thing so we will grow more wheat (I think that was during the great leap forward). Unfortunately for Mao, sparrows are freaking rad and eat, among other things, locusts, which then spread through the farms lands of china bringing about the great famine (nice one dweeb).
Public health tree huggers will point to the bare foot doctor program as a great accomplishment of the Mao regime. I mean, well if you call imprisoning or worse all the doctors or make them clean toilets instead of treating people and then train lay folk to walk around and treat minor acute complaints a big success then ok it was a smashing one.Health in rural china was bad then and its pretty bad now.
So, on to the point of this entry. I decided that in order to understand some of the "chineseness" of chinese people I had to visit the Memorial Hall of Mao Ze Dong. What follows are all true events. My first attempt at visiting the memorial was last Sunday morning.I got to Tian'anmen Square at around 7:30 am and the line for the memorial was already about 5,000 people deep (no joke...although in the interest of fairness and full disclosure I have been accused of exaggerating on occasion..or what i more eloquently refer to as "good storytelling"). The line snaked through the white stone pavement of the square. From the entrance, it twisted around the the back of the hall, looped around and came all the way back out in front.
It was here in line that I learned some very important things about the Chinese. So far from earlier blogs we know that they hate not smoking and consider driving a bloodsport and like to eat weird shit on a stick. So, let's update our running commentary on what it is to be chinese. First, chinese people hate standing in line. Funny for a communist country that they hate queuing so (maybe the Russian bread lines never made it past Mongolia).Imagine the following. You are a Westerner, used to standing in line at the bank or whatever and are now standing in line to garner entrance to the most important cultural sight for Chinese. Got it? Ok, so now you are in a line that goes on ahead of you and wraps back and comes back to you. The line in the other direction (closer to the memorial) is about 10 yards away and is guarded by young dudes in blue uniforms with mini bullhorns (and boy do they use them).Got your mental picture? Ok, so now imagine that every time a guard turns his back there is a crazy mad jail break to the other line. I mean you would think these people are running for the border or running for prize money. Whole families would hold hands and make a mad dash for the other line. At this point I couldn't resist pulling out the camera and snapping away. It's utter human mayhem (well as much as you can have when people are jumping a line). What's this you say? What about "no cuts, no butts, no coconuts"? I know, you're thinking what about the guards right? Do they stand for such patent abuse of queuing rules.
Well, to answer that we have to move on to the second thing I learned about the Chinese that Sunday. They are really good at playing possum. When clearly busted by the guards and receiving a good tongue lashing what do these insolent line jumpers do? Here's the amazing part....not a damn thing. They totally ignore the police man tugging at their sleeve and yelling at them to get out of line (no translation needed there). What's better is they start blending further into the crowd with the police man in tow still totally ignoring the law. Then guess what happens? The other folks in line don't decry no cuts, no butts, no coconuts.No, they start yelling at the cop because the family was clearly in line the whole time (you need glassed umpire). Soon enough the cop moves on to catch the next band of rascally line jumpers. This goes on and on for an hour. Amazing. So, did your dear author muster the gumption to jump. Gumption I have by the pound but unfortunately I kind of stick out when ducking into a crowd of chinese tourists and I promised several very good friends that I would specifically make an attempt to avoid getting arrested in China.
This is a never ending story but without Atreyu. Now, I get all the way to the very end of the line and there is a metal detector before you enter the hall.I empty my pockets and my camera is immediately confiscated and I am escorted (which is Chinese for dragged) out of line. They find a guard who speaks english and she tells me very politely that cameras are not allowed. Ok, so maybe you could tell me before I stand in a gagillion person long line. Maybe have a sign. Maybe have the creepy recording you play on repeat while i'm standing in line tell me not only can i not bring in a knife, gun, or explosive and that i can't engage in horseplay (ewwww) or dress inappropriately that i can't bring an mf'ing camera into the hall. but i am polite (my mom's southern) and i ask nicely if i can leave my camera here and go in and come back. nope. guess what i have to do? yep, get out of line, cross the square, cross the street,go to the "locker" section and "deposit" my camera. but surely i can come back to the entrance and avoid the line right? HA! hell no. the kind woman tells me "thank you for your cooperate" and shoves me out of line back in the throngs of the square. crushed and defeated this husky capitalist dog put his tail between his legs and scampered off to plot his revenge...sweet revenge (see part 2).
Public health tree huggers will point to the bare foot doctor program as a great accomplishment of the Mao regime. I mean, well if you call imprisoning or worse all the doctors or make them clean toilets instead of treating people and then train lay folk to walk around and treat minor acute complaints a big success then ok it was a smashing one.Health in rural china was bad then and its pretty bad now.
So, on to the point of this entry. I decided that in order to understand some of the "chineseness" of chinese people I had to visit the Memorial Hall of Mao Ze Dong. What follows are all true events. My first attempt at visiting the memorial was last Sunday morning.I got to Tian'anmen Square at around 7:30 am and the line for the memorial was already about 5,000 people deep (no joke...although in the interest of fairness and full disclosure I have been accused of exaggerating on occasion..or what i more eloquently refer to as "good storytelling"). The line snaked through the white stone pavement of the square. From the entrance, it twisted around the the back of the hall, looped around and came all the way back out in front.
It was here in line that I learned some very important things about the Chinese. So far from earlier blogs we know that they hate not smoking and consider driving a bloodsport and like to eat weird shit on a stick. So, let's update our running commentary on what it is to be chinese. First, chinese people hate standing in line. Funny for a communist country that they hate queuing so (maybe the Russian bread lines never made it past Mongolia).Imagine the following. You are a Westerner, used to standing in line at the bank or whatever and are now standing in line to garner entrance to the most important cultural sight for Chinese. Got it? Ok, so now you are in a line that goes on ahead of you and wraps back and comes back to you. The line in the other direction (closer to the memorial) is about 10 yards away and is guarded by young dudes in blue uniforms with mini bullhorns (and boy do they use them).Got your mental picture? Ok, so now imagine that every time a guard turns his back there is a crazy mad jail break to the other line. I mean you would think these people are running for the border or running for prize money. Whole families would hold hands and make a mad dash for the other line. At this point I couldn't resist pulling out the camera and snapping away. It's utter human mayhem (well as much as you can have when people are jumping a line). What's this you say? What about "no cuts, no butts, no coconuts"? I know, you're thinking what about the guards right? Do they stand for such patent abuse of queuing rules.
Well, to answer that we have to move on to the second thing I learned about the Chinese that Sunday. They are really good at playing possum. When clearly busted by the guards and receiving a good tongue lashing what do these insolent line jumpers do? Here's the amazing part....not a damn thing. They totally ignore the police man tugging at their sleeve and yelling at them to get out of line (no translation needed there). What's better is they start blending further into the crowd with the police man in tow still totally ignoring the law. Then guess what happens? The other folks in line don't decry no cuts, no butts, no coconuts.No, they start yelling at the cop because the family was clearly in line the whole time (you need glassed umpire). Soon enough the cop moves on to catch the next band of rascally line jumpers. This goes on and on for an hour. Amazing. So, did your dear author muster the gumption to jump. Gumption I have by the pound but unfortunately I kind of stick out when ducking into a crowd of chinese tourists and I promised several very good friends that I would specifically make an attempt to avoid getting arrested in China.
This is a never ending story but without Atreyu. Now, I get all the way to the very end of the line and there is a metal detector before you enter the hall.I empty my pockets and my camera is immediately confiscated and I am escorted (which is Chinese for dragged) out of line. They find a guard who speaks english and she tells me very politely that cameras are not allowed. Ok, so maybe you could tell me before I stand in a gagillion person long line. Maybe have a sign. Maybe have the creepy recording you play on repeat while i'm standing in line tell me not only can i not bring in a knife, gun, or explosive and that i can't engage in horseplay (ewwww) or dress inappropriately that i can't bring an mf'ing camera into the hall. but i am polite (my mom's southern) and i ask nicely if i can leave my camera here and go in and come back. nope. guess what i have to do? yep, get out of line, cross the square, cross the street,go to the "locker" section and "deposit" my camera. but surely i can come back to the entrance and avoid the line right? HA! hell no. the kind woman tells me "thank you for your cooperate" and shoves me out of line back in the throngs of the square. crushed and defeated this husky capitalist dog put his tail between his legs and scampered off to plot his revenge...sweet revenge (see part 2).
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