China “Re-Cap”: The Great Wall or Bust

Hello Mom!

After five days in Beijing, we’re now in Taipei, Taiwan. Sorry we couldn’t update you while in China – as you likely know, the internet is a bit wonky over there. No Facebook, no Twitter, no New York Times. In fact, here’s what our blog looked like:

Censored in China

No photos, apparently. And while e-mail worked for us, it took a long time to load and had glitches. So now we’re in Taiwan, back online, and ready to give you a Beijing report…

On our arrival, we met our fantastic driver, John Yellow Car. That’s what he calls himself, and if you search Youtube, you’ll find John hawking his services.

He speaks great English (especially compared to my Mandarin), he’s incredibly personable, and was a big help to us the first couple of days here. John Yellow Car – whose car is white, by the way – picked us up, and took us for a drive through Tiananmen Square. Here we got a quick glance of the infamous plaza with the massive portrait of Chairman Mao, the Great Hall of the People, and Mao’s Mausoleum. I turned to Amy: “Oh man, I’d really like to see the embalmed body of Chairman Mao.” Then I added, “I bet I can buy a bust of him here.”

First a little backstory about why we came to Beijing. If you’ve read our “About Us” page, you’ll know that Amy’s top goal for this trip was to take me to the Great Wall of China, and I definitely wanted to see it. But what I wanted from China is completely different. What I wanted was a bust of Chairman Mao.

When I went to Vietnam about five years ago, I bought a gold-painted bust of Ho Chi Minh on a lark. Since then, I’ve decided to collect the entire set of communist revolutionaries and strong-arm dictators – Ho Chi Minh, Mao, Lenin, Stalin – whoever fits the bill. People who know me well know that I collect posters and art prints, so I also thought I should look for some good Maoist propaganda posters in China, but:

A – I already have some from a stop in Hong Kong on that trip five years ago, and,

B – If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow.

On Friday, I got my chance. We walked from our hotel to Tiananmen Square, and seeing fast-moving lines, I told Amy I’d like to go through the Mausoleum. Sure, Mao died in 1978, but people line up to see his body every day. I figured, after 35 years lying vacuum-sealed like a bunch of Omaha Steaks, I wanted to see how the Great Leader was holding up.

No pictures are allowed inside, but here’s what happens: after you go through security, all the party faithful (which you better be if you’re Chinese) buy a yellow rose conveniently sold inside. Then you slowly and silently file into the building to find a massive statue of Mao seated and smiling to his comrades. Here the yellow roses are laid on a special platform, which is about three feet deep in roses. Then you reverently head into the actual mausoleum, and there he is, in a big glass box, resting comfortably under a blanket with only his head, receding hairline, and shoulders exposed. He looks, well, pinkish and waxen, like an old bar of Avon soap left in the guest bathroom, but surprisingly good for a man who’s been dead since Love Boat was on television. Then you all quietly file out of the building, and as with all great institutions – airports, mental hospitals, the Korean DMZ – the Mao Mausoleum has a gift shop, and I went.

There were all sorts of plaques and photos, buttons, medallions, bookmarks, even watches – everything Mao. Including this:

That’s a key-chain I bought for Amy. And you know what else they had? Porcelain busts. Porcelain busts of Chairman Mao. But I didn’t buy one. Why? It cost 200 yuan, about $33. That’s pretty expensive for China, and I’m pretty sure you can’t haggle at the Mao Mausoleum. And our next stop was the Pearl Market, where you can get just about anything and negotiate for it. So I decided to bide my time, and we took a bicycle rickshaw to the market.

You can get clothes, sneakers, handbags, electronics (all of them knock-offs), and all kinds of Chinese souvenirs – including porcelain Mao busts. I found one I liked, and started negotiating. But the woman selling it wasn’t going as low as I hoped. She claimed the one I wanted was exceptional quality porcelain, and that I needed to up my price. I held firm, and she lowered, but not enough. She wouldn’t even go under the 200 yuan price given at the Mausoleum itself. Eventually, she countered with another, different bust of Mao, but this one made of a lower-quality porcelain.

Apparently, some porcelain is better than others.

In retrospect, I wish I had the haggling skills of my father, who’s made a profession of nickel and diming car salesman. Or my friend Ari, who I once saw get a reduced price AND an upgrade at Enterprise Rent-A-Car by repeatedly saying, “if I’d have known that, I would have gone to Hertz.” I knew we were never going to agree on the high-quality porcelain, so I turned to the lesser quality one. And after a few minutes, still standing firm, I became the proud owner of a porcelain Mao bust, for the low price of 125 yuan.

The next day, Saturday, it was time for Amy’s objective. We got up early and met James, our guide for the Great Wall of China. We were going to visit a part of the wall that’s a little further afield, less traveled, and more difficult to climb. And it’s not even supposed to be open to tourists, but James knows the locals. It was fantastic.

We spent several hours walking, climbing, and learning about the history of the wall along with another couple from Australia. It was really fascinating, and James was a great guide. Then it was time for lunch, which we enjoyed with this incredible view:

And for dessert, a Snickers bar. I took a bite. And then – DISASTER!! Something wrong happened in my mouth. A strange feeling. And I discovered my front porcelain crown had snapped off into the Snickers bar. OH THE HUMANITY!

Apparently, some porcelain is better than others.

If I’d have known that, I would have gone to Hertz. I mean, really?! The Great Wall of China has stood for nearly 500 years, but my damn crown crumbled in less than twenty. Hell, Chairman Mao’s corpse has lasted almost twice as long as that crown. (Interesting fun fact: 1978, the year of Mao’s death, may have been the year I knocked out my front teeth on the side of a swimming pool. Coincidence? Eerie!)

I realized it was just one of those things, and with no other options, we ventured onward, with the remains of the porcelain crown safely thrown into a bottle of pills. Here’s Amy and me together after – please enjoy this iconic photo taken on the Great Wall of China:

Eventually a fantastic day of hiking the wall was over, and we were driven back to the hotel to contend with the remnants of my broken crown. So what to do? We went out and bought Chinese SuperGlue. That’s right – I super-glued the sonuvabitch back onto the post. It’s not perfect, but it works, at least temporarily. It’s not like I was going to some Chinese dentist (and boy, do I want to tell a really old joke about what time the appointment would’ve been if I had…).

The next day outside the Forbidden City

So we’re in Taipei as I write this, and we’re working on getting a dental appointment. Hopefully I’ll get a new crown, and all will be good with the world. We’ll keep you updated on what happens. And as for Beijing – well, Amy finally got to take me to the Great Wall, and I got a porcelain bust, and some busted porcelain. We both got what we wanted – at a price. But we’ll always have a good story to tell, and a reminder sitting quietly on the shelf, head and shoulders only, for the next 35 years and beyond…