Pickled Mao

On the eve of 8 September 1976 the ruling Politburo had an important decision to make. Mao Zedong had passed away and something had to be done with his body. While pickling doesn't immediately come to mind, China's leaders looked to Russia and Vietnam where Lenin and Ho Chi Minh's bodies laid well preserved. Mao's personal doctor, Li Zhisui, was somewhat anxious with his task at hand. Unsure as to how well his first attempt at 'preservation in perpetuity' would go, he had a wax replica of Mao constructed as a backup.

Mao in all of his formaldehyde glory went on display in Tiananmen Square one year later. His mausoleum was built by workers and with supplies from each of the provinces, a symbolic show of the spread of Mao's supremacy throughout the country. Inside, Mao's glass-topped casket lies upon a black stone from Tai Shan as a reminder of an infamous Chinese quote from Sima Qian, 'One's life can be weightier the Mt Tai or lighter than a goose feather'. Each evening the casket is lowered into a refrigerator where it rests alongside the wax version, leaving many visitors to wonder which Mao they are actually viewing.

In February 2004, six Chinese scholars drafted a proposal asking the authorities to remove the corpse from display and bury it in Mao's hometown of Shaoshan in Hunan. They claimed that to worship the corpse of a ruler is a display of a 'slave-based society' and that a body returning to dust in the ground is part of Chinese tradition. Their main concern, however, seems to be the world gaze that will be falling upon Beijing with the 2008 Olympics. They want the ghoulish exhibition gone in order for the city to appear 'civilised' and 'worthy of hosting the games'. Others claim that the mausoleum ruins the feng shui of Tiananmen Square.

Mao himself wanted to be cremated. But whether the wishes of the Chairman himself will be honoured or whether he'll retain his symbolic place of picked reverence is in the hands of the Politburo gods.