“On the second floor [of the Army Museum in Beijing], we entered a room filled with bronze busts. Here were the heroes of the Chinese revolution, from Chairman Mao to President Jiang Zemin. The “Ten Marshals”… were there. So were Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, and General Zhu De. As a fraternal gesture, the North Korean “Great Leader” Kim Il Sung was smiling benevolently from his pedestal. And there, perhaps as a salute to another authoritarian Chinese leader, was a scowling Lee Kuan Yew, scourge of the Singaporean Communist movement, standing among the Communist rulers of China. It all looked extraordinarily old-fashioned yet still menacing, all these bronze balls of power.

“I heard laughter. It was my Italian friend. ‘Listen to this,’ he said as he knocked his hand against Deng Xiaoping’s head. A hollow sound echoed through the room. I tried it too, and started knocking Lee Kuan Yew, then Kim Il Sung, then Mao himself. We went about the room like children who had discovered a new game, knocking one great leader after another. And all of them sounded hollow, for they were made to look like bronze but in fact were made of plastic.”

–Buruma, Bad Elements