I Saw Dead People (Bobanory)

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In two weeks I saw three dead people, which is three more than I have ever seen before.

Two of them were among the most influential people in the twentieth century. Each brought communism to their Country and although their policies, attitudes and methods are now being questioned even by their own Countries current politicians and political commentators, the fact that thousands of people stream past their corpses daily are a testement to the fact that they are still revered by the average worker.

The first was a decidedly spooky experience - we were short for time and to avoid having to queue and pay to check in our bags I leave my stuff with Sarah and go in first. There is not much of a queue to get in to the small red marble building. The guards at the entrance have spaced the visitors out and I am now on my own. I enter at ground level and descend two flights of stairs into absolute and terrifying darkness. I know there must be a right-hand turn coming up but as my eyes are slow to adjust (my slow-to-react-a-light specs not helping!) I nearly walk straight into a guard in full uniform, who does not flinch a muscle despite how close a collision between us there was. I guessed he is probably used to it - it is so, so dark....

I turn right and head on. This time a faint light illuminates the next guard a few metres ahead, who appears to look straight through me as if I am not really there. I am beginning to wonder myself. I turn right in the direction of the light and walk on and there to the left of me only about five metres away, lie-ing down, encased in glass, is my first dead person.

He is well-dressed in a sharp dark suit, white-shirt and dark tie, and looks just like he does in all pictures of his final years, with his trademark mainly bald head with a few remaining ginger ends and ginger goat-ee. He is so life-like in the intensely dark room and the corpse is so brightly illuminated. This combined with the certain knowledge that there are guards who I cannot see at every turn ready to gun me down on one false move, creates a feeling akin to watching a horror movie. I know everything is ok and no harm will come, but nonetheless I am definitely spooked, on edge, and want out get out of there as fast as possible. One is obliged to not stop anyway and keep going, providing just a fleeting glimpse - a glimpse was enough and I was glad to soon be out.

I legged it back across Red Square to take Sarah's bag so she could go in, who asks me what it was like. I could barely say anything except 'interesting' and shivered a little without being able to look in her eye.

Two weeks later we are in Beijing and cannot resist having a little look at their own 'cultural' revolutionist - dead for some years now. His Maoseleum is, like the previous esteemed leader, smack bang in the middle of the capital city's most famous square, Tiannamen, but in contrast, his building is massive, perhaps ten times the size of the Red Square equivalent.

We arrive fairly early to try to beat the queues but they already tail back and around the square a good few hundred metres. At least it is moving fairly quickly though and we join the masses - there must be a good two thousand people ahead. As we get near the front people are diving off from the queues to buy flowers and silk scarves from queue-side peddlers and there is an excited, chattering hum about the crowd.

As we enter the building, there is a huge, white marble statue, perhaps ten metres high of the man himself sitting at a chair. The flowers and silk scarves are being laid at the foot of the statue under strict control from an army of guards in full uniform. No doubt the flowers and silk scarves are returned to the peddlers later in the day for re-sale.

We walk around and past the statue, the queue still four or five people across and into the next room, as brightly lit as the previous. At last the chattering and crowd hum has ceased, and people are taking hats off. To the left of us is a huge glass case with a body in full army uniform. The corpse does not look at all real, in huge contrast from our first dead person, and is shiny, artificial and can be likened to a 'Spitting Image' puppet. The whole visiting experience is in stark contrast, as the hundreds stream past. The former Mausleum would I am sure feel like a personal journey to his followers, with an appropriate if spooky atmosphere created by the curators. But this one felt merely like a tourist attraction - almost a circus performance. Fascinating nonetheless.

The third dead person? In between these experiences we had just arrived in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, and decided to take a walk. There on a busy street some guy was hauling a distinctly dead-looking man into the back of a car. We put our heads down, walked on quickly and did not look back. We had six more nights in Ulan Bator - we didn't venture out after dark.

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