CHINA: Does Mao Zedong have a big mole near his mouth, or not?
That’s what a man in central China was left wondering about after he found the image of the late leader sporting an extra mole on the watermark of a 100-yuan banknote he had withdrawn from the bank.
The man from Wuhan, Hubei province, had taken 10 100-yuan banknotes from an automated teller machine of the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank late last month, local news portal Cnhubei.com reported.
He did not notice the additional detail on the left side of Mao’s mouth until last Friday, when he randomly inspected the banknotes in his wallet, the report said. All the other notes did not sport the extra mole.
When he checked with staff members from a branch of the bank, they told him that the problematic bill was not a counterfeit and could still be used, the report said.
If the man wanted, however, the bank would exchange the note with him for another one. The man then decided to keep the banknote as a souvenir.
This is not the first time wrongly printed banknotes have been reported in China.
Other similar cases reported issues including Mao’s image on the banknotes having more hair and his mouth opening more widely than shown on other bills.
In 2015, a Hubei woman withdrew from an ATM three banknotes with all their anti-forgery lines located on the wrong part of the bill, sources reported. South China Morning Daily/Asia News Network
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