Babies born in China in 2015 (the Year of the Sheep) are thought to be unlucky. So unlucky that thousands of mums rushed to have a baby in the more favourable Year of the Horse. Superstitions still hold fast in rapidly modernising China. How can international brands avoid making cultural mistakes?

Shanghai has signed a historic agreement with media conglomerate Tencent, to turn the Chinese megapolis into a tech-enabled smart city. But within the futuristic plans is a familiar presence; the entire operation will run on China’s most popular social network, WeChat.

On Chinese New Year, it's custom for adults to give kids red envelopes filled with ‘lucky money’. But 2016's celebration saw a new way of giving out these gifts – by doing it digitally. And WeChat boasted more transactions over Chinese New Year than PayPal had during the whole of 2015.

From messaging to social media to a marketplace to browsing the internet, WeChat is the app the does everything. While Western companies and app developers race to unbundle their services into efficient single-purpose apps, WeChat continues to add feature after feature.