Attack of the Commie Zombies

A Mausoleum is not the same thing as a Museum, a fact that Vinnie didn’t know when he ventured into Mao’s final resting place last November.

A Commie-style tomb

Those commies keep Mao on lock down.  You can’t get into the Mausoleum if you have a phone, a camera or any method of recording what you see inside those four walls. Vinnie and I were running late for our visit with the Chairman, arriving just 30 minutes before he was due for his 12:00 nap.

After standing in line and being frisked by the police, we found out that only one of us could enter the Mausoleum, the other had to wait outside with all of our electronic devices (of which there were three).

That’s how I ended up waiting outside the exit, watching a maniacal Vinnie run past hundreds of Chinese patriots. From yards away he began shouting:

V: “Do you KNOW what’s IN THERE!”

K: “Mao?”

V: “YES!  There is a dead body in there!!”

K: “How’d he look?”

V: “I didn’t know that I was going to see a DEAD BODY! I thought you were saying MUSEUM. I walked in and thought, man, this feels like a funeral home and all at a sudden there was a dead body! Mao’s dead body is inside there!”

K: “MAUSOLEUM. Dead bodies. So! How’s he look?”

V: “Ummm…. He’s wearing a lot of make-up.”

And he is. But you know who’s not? Ho Chi Minh.

The Uncle Ho’s Mausoleum is decidedly less grand than the Chairman’s. It’s hard to compete with the Chinese when it comes to massive showings of Communist strength. Tiananmen Square is the king daddy in display of state power.  A sea of pavement stretches from the Forbidden City to the Zhengyangmen, the front gate of Beijing’s ancient city, and right in the center of it all sits Mao’s cavernous final resting place. Your every move is observed by the watchful eyes of Chairman Mao whose oversized painting looks over the plaza (along with the thousands of strategically placed video cameras).

This way, Comrade!

Outside the gate of the Mao mausoleum a line of Chinese tourists sporting matching neon orange baseball caps wait impatiently, occasionally running, pushing and jumping the queue when space opens between people.  It’s highly controled chaos.

But the Vietnamese also know how to paint a grand post-mordem scene. The squat marble Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum overlooks the large square where the Vietnamese declared their independence. The grass and the nearby colonial-style Presidential palace gives the entire complex a genteel and inviting, rather than imposing, presence.

Vin and Uncle Ho

Uncle Ho’s mausoleum is smaller, more intimate.  The entire complex is approachable. The line is short. The guards quickly dispatch your camera without much hassle or confusion. Inside the Mausoleum there is no towering marble statue greeting you at the front door. The air is chilly. You walk up a short flight of stairs and suddenly a very pale, very dead Ho Chi Minh is lying just feet away.

Mao and Ho were embalmed by the same Soviet embalmers who first worked on Lenin. Along the way they learned some tips from Cher’s makeup team.

Everything in the Mao mausoleum is imposing, except Mao himself. Inside his crystal coffin, a halo of light beams down on Mao’s waxy, overy-rouged face. His hair is perfectly oiled in place, his fleshy pink cheeks are still plump and his body is shrouded under a wrinkle free blanket.  It’s entirely possible that Mao is just a head. A brightly lit floating head.

Mao and his security detail (a postcard)

Ho’s Mausoleum may be less grand but he certainly looks more dead.  The dim light does nothing to put Ho on display. Everything about the man is white – his face is devoid of any coloring, his white hair clings to his head and his colorless goatee flows down the front of his white outfit. Ho’s decrepit hands rest on top of his stomach and they’re clearly attached to decaying white arms.

Obviously, the Soviet’s hadn’t yet mastered Rouge 101 in 1969.

Someone took a sneaky shot! (Stolen from the interweb)

Mao and Ho are quietly resting inside elevated crystal tombs, their head’s positioned as if they’re staring down on the passing visitors. As you walk past the Chairman, you’re only able to peer in from one side before you’re hurried out the door. Mao gazes down at the four guards that are standing watch over his dead body, but Ho!

Ho lies there inviting his guests to view his body from every angle. As you circle around  the base of his coffin his elevated head lies facing you straight on, like he could wake up at any minute and declare, “American! Get out! The imperialist aggressors can never enslave the heroic Vietnamese people!”

And it’s creepy.

Kris and a lifesized Uncle Ho

The Chairman wins the prize for the most fake looking Commie – Madame Tussauds could do a better job! As for Uncle Ho, he simply looks dead.  Which is how a man whose last breath was more than 40 years ago should look (though you know that takes a lot of cash to keep them looking fresh-ish).

Now that we’ve visited Mao and Ho, we ‘re on a mission to meet the remaining two Commie Zombies.  It’s now a life goal to visit the the Eternal President of North Korean, Kim Il Sung and the founder of the USSR, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

We’re taking bets to see if Fidel will follow his fellow commies to a final resting place filled with glycerol and potassium acetate.

Our next dead Commie, Lenin!

 

 

 

 

4 thoughts on “Attack of the Commie Zombies

  1. They have that dood on mad lockdown, yo. That reminds me of when I was in Bologna, Italy, and couldn’t go into a church with a camera because there was a fresco of Mohammed in hell in there. I was traveling by myself and had no place to put my stuff, so I had to move on :

  2. Is it true that the same dude embalmed all these guys? I am sure I read that somewhere.

    If it’s true he must have changed his formula over time because when I saw Chairman Mao he looked very orange but your description of Ho sounds very pale. Maybe embalming is like dying your hair – you should always go to a salon and not attempt it at home as the results can be unpredictable. It would be a bummer to do a home embalming job on someone you cared about deeply and have them come out with that kind of green tinge that hair gets when it goes REALLY wrong.

    1. I’m pretty sure it was the same embalmers. I also read somewhere that when the USSR collapsed the charges for maintaining Ho’s body went up considerably. Damn those market forces!

      I think they did a better job on Ho. Mao was too pink and Ho was the perfect about of ghostly dead. Also, I know Ho has hands. Mao’s are hidden beneath a sheet which makes me believe something went wrong! No one wants to see the Chairman sans hands!

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