Pre-Olympic China

Where was China on the global media radar before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games? Could the answer be a clue into the country's media destiny post-Olympics, or have the games forever changed the world's view of China's capital city, launching it to a status of a country with an unmissable global influence?

The following innovations offer a glimpse into China pre-Beijing Olympics. Considering the city, formerly named Peking, spent $44 billion on the Beijing Olympics, a lot may have changed.

Whether this cluster acts as insight into the future, or merely as an entertaining flashback of the past, each innovation listed below acted as a tool, no matter how miniscule, to shape the China that we know today.

All of the innovations below pertain to China, but none to the Beijing Olympics. The list includes a Fendi fashion show on the Great Wall, the world's largest ferris wheel, an underwater museum, panda fashion, hair elastics made of condoms, multi-million dollar bras, giant plastic bubbles you can run around inside and elementary schools inside caves.