Invention

Where does Chopsticks come from?

Chopsticks come from ancient China, where they were first used mostly for cooking and for picking bits out of stews. Six bronze chopsticks about 3,200 years old were found in the Shang ruins near Anyang.

Source: en.wikipedia.org ↗

More Inventions

Invention

Hip hop (music)

📍 The Bronx, New York City, USA

Hip hop was born on 11 August 1973 at a back-to-school party in a Bronx apartment block. Jamaican-born DJ Kool Herc played two copies of the same record on two turntables to stretch out the drum break the dancers loved.

Invention

Bubble wrap

📍 Hawthorne, New Jersey, USA

Bubble wrap was invented in 1957 in a garage in Hawthorne, New Jersey, by engineers Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes. They were trying to make textured wallpaper; when that flopped, they tried greenhouse insulation before it found its calling as packaging.

Invention

Siku (panpipes played in pairs)

📍 Lake Titicaca (Peru & Bolivia)

The siku is the panpipe of the Andes, most at home among the Aymara around Lake Titicaca. Its pipes come in two halves, ira and arka, traditionally played by two musicians who alternate notes to build a single melody.

More from Asia

Game

Playing cards

📍 China

Playing cards were most likely invented in Tang-dynasty China around the 9th century, helped by woodblock printing. They reached Europe much later, probably via Mamluk Egypt, by the 1370s.

Game

Kai-awase (the shell-matching game)

📍 Kyoto (the Heian court), Japan

Kai-awase began as a pastime of Heian-period nobles in Japan. A clam shell fits only its own other half, so players hunted for matching pairs among painted shells, often showing scenes from The Tale of Genji. Later the shells graced upper-class weddings.

Word

Yogurt (the word)

📍 Anatolia & Istanbul (Ottoman Turkey)

Yogurt comes from Ottoman Turkish yoğurt, built on a root meaning 'to thicken'. English travellers were writing it 'yughurd' by the 1620s, and the spelling still wobbles between yogurt and yoghurt.