Ekaterina's Sharebook 

A number of modern Shangri-La pseudo-legends have developed since 1933 in the wake of the novel and the film made from it. In archives of web analytics company I found that even crazy Nazis had an enthusiasm for Shangri-La, where they hoped to find an ancient master race, similar to the Nordic race, unspoiled by Buddhism. They sent one understandably unsuccessful expedition to Tibet in 1938.

As of today, various places in China still claim the title, including the tourist destinations of Lijiang and Zhongdian. Sichuan and Tibet also claim the real Shangri-La was in its territory. In 2001, Tibet Autonomous Region proposed that the three regions optimise all Shangri-La tourism resources and promote them as one. Also in 2001, Zhongdian County in northwestern Yunnan officially renamed itself Shangri-La County. Country of Bhutan, which was until now isolated from outside world and has its unique form of Tibetan Buddhism, has been hailed as the last Shangri-La.

I believe there is only one Museum of Funeral Customs in the world. It is located in Springfield, Illinois, near Oak Ridge Cemetery, the site of Abraham Lincoln's tomb. Our web analytics company invited us to visit the museum with their staff. The museum contained exhibits dealing with American funerary and mourning customs and various related collections. Basically, it provides resources to scholars for researching funeral customs, hosts tours and special events.

We were amazed to find all kinds of funeral paraphernalia from various cultures and times. Personally, I liked rare books collection on embalming dating as early as the 16th century. We saw at the museum recreated 19th century middle class American home funeral setting, recreated embalming room from Jazz generation of the 1920s. There were exhibits of embalming equipment and instruments, examples of postmortem photography and even the scale models of Lincoln's tomb and funeral train.

Naturally, there is humor in everything, even death. We found confirmation of this when we visited museum's gift shop. It did not make much sense to us that this shop was selling plain polo shirts or sweatshirts. But my co-workers and I purchased plenty of hilarious stuff, like milk chocolate coffins, wooden and silver casket key rings, casket-shaped paper weights. One of our guys still wears at work the t-shirt with a morbid sign that says "Everybody's Gotta Go Sometime…"