this makes me wanting to tell the story.
Picture this , mid 80ties, China slowly opening to the world after years of isolation and still firmly Third World country . Overnight train from Lanzhou to Golmud. Despite of being well past midnight , very noisy, people talking loudly, loudspeaker broadcasting some radio program even louder. Inside , among sea of locals , me and my friends fascinated by the spectacle but also increasingly tired without chance of catching a sleep or at least nap .
Then song started in the speaker and all of the sudden all becoming VERY quiet other than few people murmuring along. When it was over , mayhem resumed but we realized that we all independently had the same thought - there's some singer in China , outside world knows noting about and yet here there's billion of fans who stopped in their tracks to to hear her singing.
There are thousands celebrities we in the West think whole world puts on pedestal high for all to see and yet majority of world including many well connected never heard about and never will, for whom Paris Hilton is just a name of hotel in French capital just for starters.
In this forum probably only @Moses and me knows who Lyudmila Zykina was and yet , when she died, Russian government felt compelled to sent detachment of soldiers for her funeral to ensure such popular singer was sent off in well deserved style.