mao the freak

beijing has more ugly people than i've ever seen anywhere else in the world, and that includes both clayton road and frankston mall shopping precincts.

one man i sat next to on the metro the other day was so ugly that i actually started dry retching (and i'm saying this in all seriousness). his hideous little moustache framed the ugliest face i've ever seen. it evoked another ugly public transport memory:

one day in the winter of 1997, on the bus on the way to school, Jeremy Park sneezed big chunks of phlegm all over the window. he let the gobs slowly trickle down whilst i sat next to him heaving violently. it's one memory that has been burned into my mind as if by a white-hot cattle prod, and is the standard by which i compare all disgusting things. mr moustache met the standard.

i might mention now that the chinese character for 'home' is a picture of a pig under a roof. i think that speaks volumes, don't you?

to be fair, the young people of beijing are hot hot hot, and it just goes to show that a bit of sorbolene and attention to detail is all it takes to convert any old jeremy into a jemima.

this is all neither here nor there.

after one week of getting no sleep whatsoever and yawning my way through all my chinese classes, i finally worked out that i was still jetlagged. why? because in my bomb-shelter of a hostel, four floors underground, there is NO day, NO night, NO temperature change, NO NOTHING to indicate a progression of time or some sort of diurnal rhythm. every morning my brain would fry when it tried to work out what the hell i was doing getting up at 2am (cairo time) for chinese class. i eventually had to delay my classes (which i should have done in the first place anyway), and everyone was happy :)

tomorrow is my last day at the little school next to the forbidden city. i alternate between states of exultation and tearful frustration at my progress, or mainly lack thereof, in chinese. at times i have snippets of conversation that seem almost native and i feel a real buzz, and then i turn around and can't even remember how to say goodbye. that sort of thing. i'm enrolling in a korean-student focussed school as of next week for two final weeks in beijing, and then i'm heading to HK to fix my visa situation.

i've also moved out of the bomb-shelter. i'm writing this from an apartment near the korean school in wudaokou, where my friend edward is putting me up for about 10 days. i feel awfully grateful, but the situation is not perfect, so watch this space.

the weekend was pretty crazy, and i met a really lovely 25 year old dutch boy with whom i got on really well - unfeasibly well. we spent a good deal of time together, and when i excitedly wrote him an email the following day (with stars in my eyes) wondering when he was next available, i got the old 'i'd like to focus on my work, let's be friends' response. damn! damn damn damn! why can't the nice ones like me too!? i didn't think i was too put out, but when i realised that i'd eaten 12 snickers bars in 48 hours (at 50c a pop, who's blaming me?) i felt that the comfort food spoke for itself.

i'm going on a date with a brazilian news presenter tomorrow which promises to be fun, so this space needs to be watched too ;)

most of the dating i have been doing is friendly dating - meeting people just to know someone, and practicing my chinese. the next couple of weeks i really don't want to see anyone else, i just want to study hard and look forward to my exciting travels through the rest of china.

so what have i seen so far?

last saturday, during a snow-storm, i went and saw the forbidden city. you get these really cool audio guides that start whenever you come near a place of interest, and have an LED map on the back that shows you where you've been, where you haven't, and which way to go. the only bad thing was that they're automatic: i met a really cool german chick there, but my audio guide started and stopped whenever we were trying to have a conversation, so we had to just let each other go. those who have taken photos of me might appreciate the photo above-left, where a poor young girl tried to get in 'all of the gate, but make sure you get my feet in the picture too' :)

the city itself was beautiful during the snow-storm, but it was a bit barer than i thought it would be. in terms of ancient-ness and grand-ness, it didn't compare to egypt, so it was the peacefulness of the place that stood out for me.

the following day i went to the temple of heaven, a large complex of buildings dedicated to the worship of the supernatural (the largest in the world in fact), set in a beautifully manicured parkland area. if you look at the photo of me on the left, standing on the 'bridge' with my arms outstretched (with the hall of prayer for good harvests in the background), you'll see that there are 5 main paths. the thin central path made of white stone, and two paths on either side. in ancient times, it was forbidden for anyone - including the emperor - to step on the central path, as it was reserved specifically for god to move between the two main temples. these days, every man and his dog (before it's eaten!) walks along the path.

that's one thing i really like about china. there's no huffing and puffing about history - the facts are presented as they're known, and all historical sites are open to everyone, without needing to pay too much. it's really for the people - you get a sense of that - and the people are proud of it. it's great. admittedly, recent history is constantly revised, but that's another story.

during the ming and qing dynasties, before cutting animals' throats, they used to beat them on the head with wooden sticks until they passed out. as they needed quite a few carcasses at the temple of heaven for sacrificial purposes, they had a department for this singular purpose known as 'the department for hitting animals'.

as i was wandering through the back streets of beijing the other day, i came upon a crowd of people surrounding two policeman beating up a man, with another man lying unconscious on the ground nearby. as the westerner, i was quickly ushered away, but couldn't help wondering: 'do these policeman belong to the department for hitting people?'

on wednesday morning, i attended what must be the biggest freakshow on earth: mao's mausoleum. my goodness! in the middle of tian'anmen square, there's a massive building which houses the remains of the initially inspired (but later criminally insecure) leader mao zedong. you have to leave bags and cameras somewhere else, and then you're herded into a long queue which walks briskly into the entrance hall, past the corpse and then out again, all within about 5 minutes. it was amazingly efficient. i reckon i did it with about 1000 other people at least, so my estimate is that over 10,000 people go through an hour, though i'd love to see the real stats on that one (if real stats could ever be obtained in this country). the actualy viewing is free, which is wonderful, as i don't think it's right to deny the people access to the leader they've been brainwashed to worship. the cult of mao is still going strong, though i think it's become a little bit pokey and kitsch.

before the entrance, there is a place where you can buy some yellow flowers to put in front of the stone statue of mao in the entrance hall. i went pretty early on in the morning, but there were already HUNDREDS of flowers there. mao's corpse is inside a sealed glass (bulletproof) coffin, covered with a chinese flag with only his ugly, shrivelled little face showing. there are two guards standing by the coffin, and then there's more bullet-proof glass, behind which all the mourners (gawkers?) pass. i had to hold back the urge to laugh out loud at the sheer freakiness of the whole affair, and feel that having his carcass on display like that is surely less respectful to him than having him cremated (which he desired). maybe in true chinese spirit, he's now the property of the people he once ruled, and this is what they want, so to hell with what he wanted.

every night mao's body is lowered into a fridge next to his wax replica. whether we see the wax replica or the real body on display is a bit unclear, but it doesn't really matter does it? i believe i saw mao, so i saw mao. let's chant it together: "i saw mao! i saw mao!"

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i've received heaps of feedback telling me that the short entries were no good and to go back to the long entries, which is exactly what i've done. usually i try to put pictures relevant to the text with my entries, but this one was a bit scattered because almost all of my photos are from the forbidden city and temple of heaven. sorry if you got confused! i'd love to get more feedback about what you want to hear, what you want to see, what the blog looks like etc (because i can write it but not view it), but i'd especially like to hear from you all to see how you're going - please email me!