Chinese Chess Wooden
Chinese Inventions Have Been Indispensable to the Western World
It might be difficult for westerners to perceive that Chinese inventions have been responsible for some of the most important innovations to come about, but the fact is that this is completely true. The Chinese have suffered under the stereotypical belief by others that they are not technologically accomplished. Just for started however, and these are not all, the Chinese invented spaghetti, the wheelbarrow, the water powered blast furnace, kits, chopstick, paper, gunpowder the seismograph, the crossbow, a plethora of weapons and armaments including tear gas, paper money, chess, the compass..need I go on?
The most important Chinese inventions, the ones that have impacted the rest of the world that is to say, have been gunpowder, just think about war and armaments! Paper, printing (they invented moveable type, not John Gutenberg) and the compass. Although they are also credited with the creation of brandy and whiskey and these are pretty important innovations for some people.
Gunpowder has certainly made one of the biggest impressions on the world, it has been responsible for a hell of a lot more deaths than lives, and is one of the most important warfare discoveries of ancient times. It was invented by and alchemist who was actually trying to invent the elixir of life for a Chinese Emperor in the Tang Dynasty. Elixirs of life have been considered to be vital to the Chinese people for centuries.
In 105 AD Cai Lun was responsible for the invention of paper, he was a Chinese Eunuch (please don’t make me explain what this means). And this was one of the greatest Chinese inventions. During the Battle of Talas River in 751, some Chinese paper makers were captured by the Arabs and this is how paper making came to be known to the world, by a process of enculturation.
The compass was originally used as a religious accruement; the Chinese people believed that when you built a new house, it had to be perfectly aligned with nature, so the compass was used to ensure this alignment. Obviously perfect alignment with nature must have been true north. This was a simply wooden circle, with notches carved on it, on which the monk balanced a magnetic spoon. Navigation throughout the world has been developed and dictated to by the compass.
They used anesthetics as far back as the third century and have been making use of herbal medical remedies since time immemorial. Several skulls dating back to the New Stone Age about 4 000 years ago have been found at sites in Qinghai, Henan and Heilongjiang provinces which indicates that skull operations may have taken place at this time.
We could seriously discuss this subject for a very long time and never get to the end of the inventions the Chinese have been credited with, but I think for now, this will do!