According to a helpful young guide in the exhibit hall, if you die in China and no one claims your carcass, you end up donated to a medical school, per Chinese law.

Unlucky in death, you might even be 'donated' to a profit-making P.T. Barnum outfit like the one responsible for exhibit.

Why are the bodies here predominantly male, I asked the guide. Because females are more often claimed, she said.

Too bad for the one pregnant gal around the corner with a section of her stomach sliced away, revealing the baby inside her womb.

A couple of our friends had said the "Bodies" exhibit was a 'must see' while we were in Manhattan.

And so we went, and we gawked, and we learned some things about how we people are put together.

And Tom and I both walked away feeling a little icky for the experience.

This in not a nice way to treat the dead.

Liberace's mirror-tiled Baldwin grand piano deserves to be on exhibit in Las Vegas.

But not the remains of a human being.

I am ashamed for having bought a ticket.

I went for the brain.

Hmmm. Feels like it weighs, oh, four or five pounds.

Next, I picked up the section of muscle tissue. It felt something like a slab of plastic corn beef.

The bone I just patted.

On the way out of the hall, Tom asked: "Did you see the sign above the body parts you could touch?. It said: "Handle With Respect".

How's that for irony?

These folks are displaying a road show of bodies from London to Las Vegas (plus Atlanta and Tampa) and they're asking for us to show some respect?

What a curious world.

How did these poor people end up preserved in a freak show instead of resting at Forest Lawn?

You can thank some "scientists", Chinese morticians on the take, and some goulish tourists like Tom and me for making it all happen.