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Notes: Why mops? Why not?! There is a literary tradition in China to write poetry about things. This form of poetry is called 詠物 Yongwu and over many centuries an 'encyclopedic spectrum of subjects', as one scholar has described it, have been covered. At times this form has degenerated into writing about everything including the kitchen sink. But sadly and surprisingly mops have been overlooked completely. This in spite of the fact that they have been present in China from ancient times and are essential to everyday living. Surviving historical statistics on this subject are scant but our educated estimate today is that there must be at least one mop per person or 1.2 billion mops more or less (minus the population of Xinjiang who live in the deserts outside the cities). This, for those of you who are not conversant with this subject, is a resonable number of mops, or as my Spanish friends say, 'muchas mopes!', or in Chinese, '太多拖把 Tai duo tuoba! Organizing our inventory of mop images is a sizable task. Please bear with us. Soon you will be able to peruse a slideshow of the world's largest existing collection of mop images from all over China. Patience..... And if you come across any mop poems do send them to us!

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