I'm always happy to go on a tangent about literature, but my thoughts aren't terribly desired by the masses. By comparison, even though the founding father of modern China has been dead for forty years, he's as popular as ever on the literary front.
While Chairman Mao is best known as a revolutionary and politician (and lover of snappy looking gray suits), he was also a poet in his spare time, as well as a lover of classical Chinese literature and the poetry of others.
Late in life, with his health deteriorating and his eyesight failing, Mao asked for a professor to visit and read various poetry and literature to him. Di Lu began visiting him to do just that--but asked the chairman to write out notes to her regarding his thoughts, as she had trouble understanding the Chairman.
The notes were saved. Fast forward forty years, and those scribbles and reflections on literature were auctioned off. According to the BBC, Sotheby's in London sold the notes this week for $910,000. The estimated selling price going in? $78,000-$105,000.
Now, see, slip me a $5 spot and you could save yourself a fortune.
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