Laudable aim to revive tradition

THE qipao or cheongsam, with variations in style, are typically worn during Chinese festivals including Chinese New Year.

For something different this year, however, you might want to consider donning the hanfu instead, to usher in the Year of the Boar.

In 2007, non-governmental organisation Young Malaysians Movement (YMM) Taman Sri Petaling branch in Kuala Lumpur started the Hanfu Movement as they were keen to spread awareness of hanfu, Han etiquette and traditional Chinese culture.

YMM member Sin Chen Yeong said most Chinese in Malaysia are of Han descent and hanfu is the traditional outfit of the Han.

“Pioneer YMM members started the movement with hopes that local Chinese would more learn about Chinese culture.

“Many think the cheongsam is traditional Chinese attire, but it is actually Manchurian.

“The form fitting cheongsam you see today is a modified version of the loose-fitting Manchurian qipao.

“Many Han-Chinese adopted the Manchurian hairstyle and clothing to conform and avoid persecution during the Qing dynasty,” he said of the Manchus who were an ethnic minority in China then.

He stressed that YMM was not against wearing the cheongsam as it was also a variation of a Chinese outfit.

“We have nothing against the cheongsam.

“It is a free country and people can dress as they like as it is a personal choice.

“We just want to raise awareness that the hanfu was around even before the cheongsam came about,” said Sin.

He added that while it was nice to see the Malays and Indians wearing their traditional costumes regularly, it was a pity that the Chinese no longer do so.

“We have received positive feedback from other races who think our hanfu is beautiful. Some of them also enjoy trying it on during our events,” Sin said.

Appreciating the hanfuAccording to Sin, hanfu is a general term referring to the clothing of the Chinese, encompassing its many variations, similar to the baju melayu, a general term for Malay clothing.

“The basic form is the ‘Y’ collar.

“This style has also influenced the Japanese and Koreans as they are part of the Sinosphere (East-Asian cultural sphere).

“The robes of monks also have the same collar,” he said.

The was no obvious difference for men and women in the basic design, but women tend to prefer flowery patterns on their hanfu, said Sin, citing examples of theshuheand ruqun.

“It is important to note that the left lapel is draped over the right as the opposite direction is only used when one is deceased,” he said.

Sin also dispelled several misconceptions about the Han.

“Some think the hanfu originated from the Han dynasty, but this is not so. The hanfu was worn by the Han-Chinese throughout the various dynasties up till the end of the Ming dynasty,” he explained.

“People have this notion that the hanfu is bulky, but there are variations, worn according to the four seasons.

“There are even hanfu designs suitable for our hot climate.

“We can opt for cotton and lightweight materials, and a simpler sleeve design (as opposed to the ones with large sleeves),” he said.

Those interested in getting a hanfu can either get it tailor-made or purchased online, Sin shared.

“Previously, we could only get it from China, but these days, there are local tailors who are able to make the hanfu.

“Most Malaysian tailors are skilled in western cutting for clothes.

“To make a hanfu, you need tailors who know how to follow oriental designs and sew the clothes properly,” said Sin.

He was happy to see more people were embracing the hanfu, and the trend is growing.

“Of late, I have noticed people wearing the hanfu in areas where we have not been to promote them.

“Like in Melaka where I am from, I have noticed people wearing the hanfu.

“Some may think only the older generation are interested in traditional culture, but we were surprised to see youths joining us as they are interested to learn about more Chinese culture too.”

He added, “Ten years ago, you would get stares if you wear a hanfu, but in recent years, there has been more acceptance among the public.

“Some people mistake the hanfu for the traditional Japanese yukata or kimono, or the Korean hanbok,” he said.

He also related an incident where he was once mistaken for a monk in Melaka when wearing a hanfu to a Chinese temple.

“The temple caretaker thought I was a monk and clasped his hands together to greet me!” he laughed.

Traditional greeting stylesAside from clothes, the members also showed several ways of greeting people in the olden days.

The common form is gong shou, whereby one hand is wrapped over the fist, similar to how one would wish gong xi gong xi during Chinese New Year.

For men, the practice is to wrap the left hand over the right while for women, it is the other way round.

Ping yi is another greeting gesture, similar to gong shou except the palms are open and face inwards, not clenched into a fist like the gong shou.

A more formal way is to have your arms stretched further.

YMM Taman Sri Petaling branch chairman Wong Chin Loong said to promote hanfu and Chinese culture, the association organises several activities throughout the year such as etiquette workshops, hanfu tailoring workshops, archery classes and an annual cultural camp.

These activities are usually held in August or September.

The association will have its annual Han Feast in March to raise awareness of Chinese dining etiquette.

The Power, the Intrigue, the Clothes

Now that the awful heat is moderating, it’s time to ask: What was the most popular cultural phenomenon of the summer? Hint: It wasn’t “Crazy Rich Asians,” and it wasn’t the computer-animated “Incredibles 2,” despite its billion-dollar gross. Think bigger: The summer’s hottest property was “Story of Yanxi Palace” — a TV costume drama on a Chinese streaming service, whose tales of scheming empresses and backstabbing concubines in 18th-century Beijing have been watched 17 billion times, according to Maoyan, the Chinese online ticketing and statistics provider, or more than twice for every person on earth. Its ratings crush America’s most viewed shows dozens of times over, and “Story of Yanxi Palace” has had knock-on effects throughout China: for one, it’s filliped attendance at Beijing’s Palace Museum, housed in the Forbidden City where those aristocratic women preened and conspired.

You can stream the 70 episodes of “Story of Yanxi Palace” at your leisure, but you don’t have to go all the way to Beijing to discover the luxe lives of the Qing dynasty’s imperial women. Their gowns, their jewelry, their religious accouterments and the paintings they appreciated can now be found here in Massachusetts, in “Empresses of China’s Forbidden City”: a huge and opulent exhibition at the Peabody Essex Museum that excavates the lives of women behind the Forbidden City walls. The objects here date from the late 17th century to the foundation of the republic in 1912, and almost 200 of them are on loan from the Palace Museum, the bulk never before seen in the United States.

For all its splendor, “Empresses” is a gratifyingly rigorous show. Qing-era historians left only bare-bones outlines of women’s lives, and both the exhibition and a hefty catalog use clothing, paintings and the decorative arts to fill in big gaps in the Chinese historical record. It opens with a grand evocation of an imperial wedding in 1889, when the Guangxu emperor married the young Xiaoding in a midnight ceremony. One of Xiaoding’s silk wedding gowns is here, and its awesome detailing, from the roundels of gold dragons and phoenixes on the body to the groovy multicolored waves on its hem, signify her ascent to mother of the nation. In five paintings on paper, which make use of wonky, half-mastered western perspective, we see Xiaoding borne through the Forbidden City on a palanquin adorned with peacock feathers; courtiers and servants have packed the gardens and pavilions, and everyone is preparing for the court’s new calculus of power and prestige.

Each Qing emperor had several wives, only one of whom would be classed as “empress.” She sat atop a hierarchy of eight levels of imperial women, ranging from beloved consorts to concubines to glorified servants; above the empress herself was her mother-in-law, the dowager empress, who effectively picked her son’s brides. One’s place in the imperial harem was signified by exacting differentials in privileges: how many servants you got, what plates you could eat off and what colors you could wear. Only the empress, the empress dowager, and consorts of the second rank could wear the bright yellow gown here from the later 18th century, made of gleaming satin and bedecked with dragons and clouds of metal-wrapped silk.

The empress and top-tier consorts would also express rank through jewelry, whether ornate jade hairpins or tortoiseshell bangles that clinked on the arms. They also got the best shoes — the Qing elite were Manchus, from the northeast of China, and did not bind women’s feet. One extraordinary pair of pearl-festooned platform boots here, to be worn on horseback, would not have been out of place on “Soul Train.”

Though they sat at the heart of Chinese influence, the women at the Qing court were classified as the emperor’s “inalienable possessions.” Your best bet for moving up the ladder was to bear a son — since the imperial succession was merit-based, and any of the emperor’s boys could be his heir. A scroll painting here from around 1844 depicts the Daoguang emperor sitting beside a woman with a pinched faced and calm smile. Her name was Quan, and she entered the Forbidden City at the bottom of the heap, but was elevated in the imperial harem after giving birth to a boy. Check out the dress: she’s wearing yellow, and therefore has made it to the top.

Some empresses had little to no romantic attachment to the emperor, while others formed deep attachments to the monarch. The Qianlong emperor, one of China’s greatest cultural patrons, married the empress Xiaoxian before he ascended to the throne, and when she died young in 1748 he wrote an aching funeral elegy for her in watery, grief-haunted calligraphy. Yet this exhibition — like the hit soap opera “Story of Yanxi Palace” — is ultimately not about love but about power: how to get power, how to wield power, and how to maintain power in circumstances not propitious for your gender.

No one did it better than Cixi, the dowager empress and de facto ruler of China for much of the later 19th century. She too came up from the lower ranks of consorts after giving birth to a boy, and when her husband died she installed herself as her son’s regent, remaking Chinese politics in the process. Almost all the images of other empresses in this show would not have been seen outside the Forbidden City, but Cixi employed the newly arrived technology of photography to burnish her standing; at the dawn of the new century she posed in a resplendent silk robe, towers of plums by her side, the picture of stability. She also cunningly used religious imagery to solidify her status. One bizarre painting here depicts her as a bodhisattva, riding through the sea on a bed of lotus petals.

Cixi also cultivated foreign supporters, and this show closes with a large, Art Nouveau-ish portrait of Cixi by the American painter Katharine A. Carl, which she commissioned to charm American audiences after the anti-foreign Boxer Rebellion. Deathly two-dimensional, the painting shows Cixi in extreme stillness; pearls cascade down her neckline, and on her hands are green press-on fingernails as long as eagles’ talons. As a work of art, it’s ghastly. As a work of political craftsmanship, it is knavishly impressive.

“Empresses” has been organized by Daisy Yiyou Wang, a curator at the Peabody Essex, and Jan Stuart, a curator at the Freer and Sackler Galleries in Washington, to which this show will travel next year. It runs through February though the Palace Museum’s loan restrictions will require the curators to rotate new objects at the Peabody Essex in November and to send some of its current prizes back home. Whether you catch this cycle or the next, this is a rare glimpse of collections we rarely see in the United States — and as the world’s two superpowers butt heads, collaborations between Chinese and American museums deserve all the support they can get.

Traditional Chinese Clothing

The ancient Chinese people skilled truly special social lessons. Each of these offers certain styles in addition to importance regarding outfitting. Different symbols are utilized concerning the clothing to tell apart among different strata related to culture. The ancient Chinese clothing offers different considerably all through different periods of time. Each social or even historic period of time brought on a whole new type. Through the Pre-Qing Empire (also referred to as the particular Manchu Kingdom has been the last judgment dynasty regarding China via 1644 in order to 1912.); your common traditional Chinese clothing was generally called hanfu with many different variants such as traditional Chinese academic gown. Every person stratum displayed another type. Actually the army was completely special in its appearance.
Chinese city and county or even army officers skilled a variety of motifs to illustrate their position as well as position. Limit buttons were utilised being an icon of the position. There have been 9 kinds of shade coded cap buttons which symbolized the particular Nine special prices. Another well-liked insignia has been the particular Mandarin square. as well as position marker. The particular Hanfu now’s placed on just from special attractions which can be primarily historic reenactment, activity, coming regarding age/rite related to passage events, ceremonial clothing used by spiritual priests, as well as social exercising. Nonetheless, you can find attempts onto try to turn it into a section of much more everyday placed on at least in the course of Chinese festivities as well as festivals specifically in China in addition to on the list of no homeowner community.
The actual traditional Chinese clothing in the majority of traditional best is a different regions of certain fabric which can be coated in the special type. It might be completely different in the traditional garment more social groups inside China like the Manchurian qipao. There’s a great big difference between the Han way of outfitting as well as the Manchurian effect. It really is so far an unresolved concern that of those 2 is the correct traditional halloween costume in the historic Chinese. A couple of outfits generally regarded as generally Chinese, like the qipao, is the results of effect by raw laws (Collection Buy) added by Manchurian rulers in the Qing Kingdom, and they are regarded as by a number of promoters simply because not “traditionally” Han.