A poem by Tom Fearon

We’ve built roads and planted trees
Our malls are new and our parks are free
Our population has increased
As more people head northeast
Because there’s no better place to be
Than right here in Shunyi

We’ve made our district pretty
Kicked migrant workers to the city
We live in tidy villa homes
Near thriving economic zones
From the city you should flee
It’s time to move to Shunyi

It's an old saw that the Chinese invented most everything, including saws. But how many can you name to impress people at dinner parties? The four big ones are paper, printing, the compass, and gunpowder (while trying to create an elixir of immortality, ironically). Lesser known are golf, wheelbarrows, helicopters and – logical when you think about it – toilet paper.

We thought it would be interesting to list one Chinese invention for each letter of the alphabet. Most of these are well established, some are a stretch from the current version of the thing but the original idea was Chinese, or so they claim. Pity they didn't invent copyright.

A PHOTOGRAPHY SERIES FROM SHANGHAI STREET STORIES

The race to save an orphaned Chinese child – by Lao Ye

Another emergency phone call. This time, a child needed to be accompanied to the hospital. Abby was maybe three years old, I guessed. She had what looked like severe eczema covering her face, eyes forced shut from the crusty skin. Someone hailed a taxi and we were on our way.

The first minutes were calm, but halfway across town that changed. She began crying hysterically, then screaming. I tried to talk to her but she was too far gone. I settled for holding her on my lap while the taxi driver complained about the noise. We stopped to see if she needed to use the bathroom – she did not. After much too long, we made it to the hospital and Abby had some tests, revealing the source of the reaction.

Edited from Fuck Yeah Chinese Myths!:

Meng Tian (蒙恬 Méng Tián) was a general under the first Emperor Qin Shi Huang, and distinguished himself in campaigns against the Xiongnu or Huns. Legend also credits him with inventing the writing brush (毛笔 máobǐ).

The thing is, Meng Tian had to report back to the Emperor a lot, and back then you could only write by carving on bamboo slips. Which sucked, because it took a long time to write anything. So one day, Meng Tian took his sword tassel, dipped it in ink, and wrote on the bamboo. It was so much faster, and after that Meng Tian’s soldiers hunted animals for their fur. They tied the fur ends to bamboo or wooden sticks, and the brush was born.