"...Ho Chi Minh is lauded as "one of the 20th century's most prominent revolutionaries, and the founding father of modern Vietnam." He led the Communist, nationalist liberation movement, seeking independence for Vietnam from France, and later served as Prime Minister and President of the newly liberated Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam).

In 1942, Ho Chi Minh was arrested in China, accused of being a spy. Imprisoned for over a year, he kept a diary written in minimalist poems in classic Chinese. Why Chinese instead of his native Vietnamese? Well, for one, he was fluent in both (and at least passable in English as well), but also he knew that if he wrote in a language his captors could not read, they wouldn't allow him to continue to write..."