2015 China

11 April, Beijing
Shindom Inn 199CNY

Despite arriving at Tiananmen Square shortly after 08:00, several thousand anticipatory Chinese visitors had already joined the shambling queue eagerly awaiting access to Mao’s mausoleum. We spent 90 minutes in line for less than one minute with the “Great Helmsman”. Mao’s mummified corpse lies draped in a red blanket blazoned with a hammer and sickle. Two-by-two we filtered past his crystal casket, his waxy face spotlit and eerie. In the ante-chamber, guards allowed visitors who had bought a single white chrysanthemum before mounting the memorial hall stairs, to place their flowers near a white statue of Mao seated with one leg crossed over the other. I had entertained myself in the queue by trying to keep up with a talented queue-jumper who had passed me soon after we joined the line, shuffling four or five abreast. The queue is kept orderly by barriers and microphone-toting officials, but many Chinese make gaining ground within a queue an art form. I was determined to learn from the man ahead of me and did. The trick is to ease past others without giving offense. It requires a gentle pressure from arm or hip; it requires a shoulder dip-n-twist and quick-step into a fleeting gap; it requires taking active steps to prevent others doing the same to you by making yourself subtly broader – an elbow extended to just in front of your neighbour’s arm will usually do the trick. Charl, not actively playing my game, often found himself seven to ten people behind me – as we were shuffling four or five abreast, this put around 40 people between us. More importantly, if I had allowed all the elderly women adept at leap-frogging to pass me, I might still have been in line when they closed the doors at noon!

After “window-shopping” this afternoon at Beijing’s famed antiques market, Panjiayuan, we subway-ed to the Olympic Park to admire from the outside only the Bird’s Nest stadium and Water Cube aquatics centre. Then dined on Peking duck at the Quanjude where reservations cannot be made and people are willing to wait over an hour to be seated and served their signature dish.