Man Spends 17 Years to Draw Map of Chaoshan

Yi Meizang, a 65-year old man from Xinan of Chenghai, has drawn a big map of the three cities in Chaoshan by himself.

Yi loves poetry and earns his living by writing spring couplets for other people. In order to provide a reference to people who want to know about Chaoshan, he started to draw this map in 1989. Over the next 17 years, he bought many books about the culture of Chaoshan to study and went to more than 70 places to confirm that information he collected for this map. He reviewed the map five times and finally finished it in 2005. The map is about 2 square meters, including all the villages, hills, rivers, roads and bridges in Shantou, Chaozhou and Jieyang. There are also 10000 words of introduction of these cities’ histories in addition to the map. [according to an article from Shantou Special Zone Evening here]