HEAVY LITTLE OBJECTS

#41 :: Maoist hologram

His visage bright, his jaw grimly set, the Chairman gazes toward the West with a stony wisdom and strength, against the sunburst iconography of a Communist flag. This was bought at Mao Zhedong's tomb in Tienanmen Square just three years after the murderous defeat of the student uprisings. With prim efficiency, uniformed guards ushered lines of tourists through the tomb, past the suspiciously lifelike corpse (or effigy) of the Great Leader and out into the gift shop, just as they had done for the years since his death. It is laser-etched glass rimmed with cheap goldtoned pot-metal on a flimsy chain, the sort of trinket a younger teenager might wear to look modern yet correct. Dozens more hung beside it, glittering.