Han Clothing Public Relations Plan

Drexel University has a group of Han clothing fans. They worked hard on letting more people know about Han clothing and persuading them to put it on in their daily life. After four years of advertising it to the local Chinese international students. Now, they want to hold a public relations campaign in order to promote traditional Chinese clothing to the Philadelphia citizens. I tried to make a basic public relations plan for this campaign. Here is the plan:

Market: Philadelphia, PA	Team Name: Han Clothing ING
Event Dates: 10/1/16-2/19/17	Venue: Chinatown in Philadelphia
PR Department: Yuqi Jiang Director of Public Relations O: 215.460.7133 E: yj94@drexel.edu Huanran Wang O: 215.436.0273 C: 215.336.4768 E: weichengke@gmail.com Meiga Chen O: 215.467.3086 C: 215.365.5734 E: megachen@gmail.com	Han Clothing ING: Xuke Qian Senior Vice – President/ General Manager C: 215.413.3645 E: jialanjiayu@gmail.com Liang Cha Manager of Marketing & Operations C: 215.225.8537 E: sushixiaoliangcha@gmail.com
Background: Traditional Chinese Clothing, also know as Han clothing, is the traditional clothing of the Han Chinese (Han: the main ethnic group of China) for more than 4,000 years.	Goals: To let Americans (especially Philadelphia citizens) know that Han clothing used to be the representative of traditional Chinese culture. And it should be able to represent Chinese culture in the contemporary society. Try to make them accept the cloth first, then gradually start to accept the traditional Chinese culture.

Primary PR Messaging

Message 1: Han Clothing is the representative of traditional Chinese culture for more than 4,000 years. It indicates that our ancestors favored personality traits such as being economical and standing upright.

Message 2: Modern Chinese started putting on Han clothing to try to revive the Han Chinese culture for 12 years. During this time, they tried extremely hard to let the public accept it.

Media Drop / Material Ideas

Media Materials / Drop: Traditional Chinese Hairpin (see picture) Source: Mega Timing: TBD Budget:

Interview: A College Professor

I recently interview Allan Stegeman, a teaching professor from the Department of Communication in Drexel University, about his opinions on Han clothing. Professor Stegeman has a comprehensive knowledge of traditional Chinese culture, and he shows great interest about Han clothing. 

1. Q: What is your current understanding about traditional Chinese clothing?

A: Almost all of my understandings about Chinese clothing came from movies. I know color plays an important role in it. For example, red stands for good fortune, white is used for funeral, gold is only for the king, and the lower class should wear darker colors.

2. Q: I will show you two pictures, please tell me which one do you like more?

A: I know the second one is the traditional Chinese clothing that you are talking about. I appreciate it. It is fascinating. I can see the cultural meaning behind it. However, I personally think that the first one is prettier. It fits the modern beauty more.

Source: Flying Bee

3. Q: Han clothing stands for the traditional culture of China. How do you see the cultural meaning behind clothes?

A: Well, as a matter of fact, there is a historical component behind all traditional clothes, not only the traditional Chinese clothing. The more you know about the culture, the more you can see it in the design of its traditional clothes. I believed that traditional Chinese culture is the core going values of the Chinese clothing, it is pure Chinese, like the long sleeves that cover the skin, the middle straight line, etc, all of which shows the uniqueness about China.

4. Q: Do you think it is possible that traditional Chinese clothing can develop again in the modern society? If yes, do you think it should keep what it is now in the traditional way or change with the modern society?

A: Of course it’s possible. However, I expected it to evolve just like the Chinese culture evolved in the past hundred years. Because of the globalization, now almost everything is international, so should the traditional Chinese clothing. In the contemporary society, the cultural identity of China had already been changed, we agreed that the traditional Chinese clothing is the reflection of Chinese culture, then it should change as well, to form a new tradition in an international way.

Negative Phenomenon in Han Clothing Circle (2)

Except the argument about what the real Han clothing is and how should we wear it, there is another extremely bad phenomenon exist in the Han clothing circle nowadays: the unreasonable selling method in the second-hand sale market.  

Price Increase:

An increasing number of designers joined the Han clothing circle in the recent few years, which has a positive influence on the Han clothing renewal development. However, most of the great-designed Han clothing are expensive and rationed, which means that in this market, supply falls short of demand. Many merchants figured out that it is a good chance to make more money, so they spend a large amount of money on buying as more rationed Han clothing as they can, then raise the price as high as possible and sell them online.

We all know that it is immoral and unethical, however, only a few people can control themselves from buying it. This behavior leads to a vicious spiral, the price of the clothing becomes higher and higher while the quality of it becomes lower and lower. Nowadays, a lot of people hate the Han clothing circle because of this bad phenomenon.

Pack Together:

As I mentioned before, most of the great-designed Han clothing are expensive and rationed. Although someone is capable of buying it with a higher price, most of the Han clothing fans are still students who are not that wealthy. Also, some merchants do not want to let others think that she/he is immoral by raising the price. They figured out a new way to sell those clothes: by "packing" it with other “garbage”.

They will sell it at a high price along with some other things that they don't need anymore, like old shoes or used furnitures. Most of the merchants prefer this way because they can earn the money while getting rid of the garbages they do not need, and also people will not judge them for raising the price. In their defense, they sell the Han clothing in the original price, and the extra money is used for buying the “garbages”.

Negative Phenomenon in Han Clothing Circle (1)

Both the designer and the shopkeeper mentioned that there exist a lot of problems in the Han clothing circle. Today, I want to talk about what those problems are and how did they affect the development of Han clothing in the contemporary society.

“Han modern clothing insults traditional Han clothing”:

A lot of people believed that Han modern clothing cannot help advertising Han clothing at all. Conversely, they maintained that it will causes misunderstanding about what the real Han clothing is for learners. What’s more, they believed that while Han modern clothing changed the design of traditional Han clothing, it lost the cultural meaning behind it at the same time, and without the cultural meaning, the clothing is neither unique nor important.

On the contrary, another group of people thinks that Han modern clothing is better than traditional Han clothing. People can wear it casually, and there is basically no limitation about how to design a Han modern clothing.

“We have to wear Han clothing formally”:

A few stubborn people in the Han clothing circle fight against the Han clothing routinization activity. They maintain that Han clothing represents our traditional culture, which means that we shouldn’t wear it with the other weird clothes. It shows disrespect for our own culture. It was a good thought at first, however, they went too far on this point. They do not allow people to wear sneakers or even glasses while they were in Han clothing, because “Those things did not exist in ancient time.”

However, with the development of the times, culture and clothes will develop as well, and this development is positive. I believe we should not just stumble upon this subject. Renaissance does not mean that we have to return to the ancient society. On the contrary, it teaches us to learn the positive experience from the ancients and make it better in the modern world.

Interview: A Han Clothing shopkeeper

Huanran Wang owns an online store named "Lotus", which sells Han clothing in China. She has been running that store for more than five years. Her store sells almost all the classical forms of Han clothing and she designed most of them. There are more than a hundred of people go to her store online each month in order to buy the Han clothing that she designed, and her store gains 4.5 out of 5 stars among the customers.

1. Q：As a Han clothing shopkeeper, which element do you concern as the most important one?

A：Well, even if I sell Han clothing rather than modern things, I am still a shopkeeper. The most important element for me is the profit indeed. But I know well that Han clothing is not just a clothes. Only a few people know about that and fewer people accept it. After making sure that I can have profit, I will spend most of my energy on making sure that the quality and design are as good as possible.

2. Q：I know that you are a big Han clothing fan before being a shopkeeper, why do you want to open a store that sells Han clothing?

A：I want to do something real for the Han culture renewal movement. I think open a store will be helpful, because as long as your clothes are beautiful enough, you can attract more people’s interest about it. The real clothes are definitely more attractive than the online pictures.

3. Q：Which sells better? The traditional Han clothing or the Han modern clothing?

A：Han modern clothing indeed. Because there are a lot of people like Han clothing, but most of them think it is too embarrassed to wear it outside, and they will choose Han modern clothing instead.

4. Q：Then will you focus more on Han modern clothing for more profit and gradually reduce selling the traditional Han clothing?

A：Actually, on the contrary, I am considering about reducing making Han modern clothing. For me, Han modern clothing is the introduction for traditional Han clothing, it is helpful for the freshman, but if we only have Han modern clothing, people will never get the chance to know about the deeper meaning of Han clothing or Han culture. It violates my initial purpose of opening this store. I will never do that.

5. Q：Tell me about your expectation for Han clothing development in the future.

A：I hope people in the Han clothing circle can seek common ground while reserving differences during the process, I understand that there are some divergences about Han clothing study, but if we ourselves can't unite together, Han clothing can never develop well. Anyway, hope we have a great future.

Interview: A Designer

As I mentioned before in my previous posts, ornament plays an important role in the Han clothing world, which indicates that people who design traditional ornaments are also popular among Han clothing fans. Mega is one of those popular ornament designers. Her online store gains more than 500 fans in only two weeks, a lot of celebrities gave full praise and high recommendation about it.

1. Q：How did you know about Han clothing in the first place?

A：I was extremely obsessed with ancientry in high school. I searched almost everything that related to it online, and I saw Han clothing at that time. It hit me straightly.

2. Q：How do you think about the Han clothing renewal movement?

A：Well, I got to know about that six years ago. At that time, not many people knew about it, but they still tried so hard. Their insistence touched me, and I decided to help them by joining the group. After six years, I saw more and more people join the family, the activities become more official and interesting, the progress is obvious. But more people bring more problems, sometimes I felt tired about arguing about different opinions.

3. Q：Do you prefer the original Han clothings or the Han modern clothes?

A：I was attracted by the original Han clothing, but now I would prefer the one that I can actually wear on the street. However, for me, Han modern clothes are mostly ugly and poorly designed nowadays. As a designer, I would like to make it more unique and special to attract more people.

4. Q：How do you think about innovation in Han clothing?

A：There is no doubt that our ancestor designed their clothes like that for a reason, and if we want to win the Han cultural renewal movement, there is something that we have to insist and never give up. However, modern clothes replace the traditional clothes for a better reason as well, I believe some innovation can help the modern people like is more.

5. Q：Anything you want to say to Han clothing?

A：I will continue loving you in 2016, you taught me a lot, it is time for me to help you look better.

Han Clothing on Street Today!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Han Clothing on Street Today!

PHILADELPHIA, PA - November 22, 2015—The first international Han clothing activity “Han clothing on street today” is coming soon on November 22, 2015.

“Han clothing on street today” activity is designed to honor the first modern Chinese who dared to show himself in public while wearing the whole set of traditional Chinese clothing. 12 years ago, on November 22, he successfully got the attention from the whole China. It encourages more people to study in Han clothings and Han culture.

This activity asks people around the world to put on their own traditional Chinese clothing, go outside, live their daily life as usual, and let the whole world see it. By doing that, the participants are trying to deliver a message that Han clothing is neither out of time, nor inconvenient for daily life. For now, over ten thousand people over the world had already signed the agreement for joining this activity in the online Han clothing post bar, including people lived in America, Australia, Canada, and England. There is a Han clothing club in CSSAD (Chinese Students and Scholars Association at Drexel University). The leader of the club is collaborating with the Chinatown and trying to encourage more people in Philadelphia to join this activity.

It is not necessary to sign online for participation qualification, the only thing you need, is one real Han clothing in your closet, and one real courage in your heart.

This activity is mainly held by Chinese Han clothing research association in China. Chinese students and scholars association at Drexel University are helping to support it in the Philadelphia area.

Yuqi Jiang covers participant issues in Drexel University. She can be reached at yj94@drexel.edu, or 215-460-7133.

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About CSSAD (Chinese Students and Scholars Association at Drexel University):

Address: 3141 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104

Email: cssadorg@gmail.com

Han Modern Clothing

Although Han clothing now is no longer being resisted by the Chinese citizens anymore, still only a small number of people know well about it. In order to make the Han clothing more attractive to modern people, Han clothing designers and merchants came up with a new type of clothes. It keeps the most important features of Han clothing, but it looks more like the modern clothes. They named it “Han modern clothing”.

Here is a picture of Han modern clothing:

Source: Douzi Mao

The most important feature of Han modern clothing is that it keeps the main elements of Han clothing. For example, both the tops and dresses have to be fastened by ropes or rope hookers, if there is any zipper on the clothes, it is not Han modern clothing anymore.

What’s more, never forget about the straight line in the middle of the clothes, the thing that encourages people to become an upright person, without that, it is just a well-designed modern clothes with no cultural spirit behind.

Normally, Han modern clothing is created by shortening the length of the dress or sleeves, letting people see more skin make them look more like a modern clothes. Also, some designers will add some modern elements on the normal Han clothings. For instance, add some lace on the sleeves, or put a pannier inside the dress, etc. The designer believed that the whole cultural spirit shouldn’t be banned in the same structure of clothes. In order to let the traditional clothing fits better in the modern society, it is necessary to discard the dross and select the essence. As long as they keep the most important elements, the culture will never die, not even if the make the clothes look like a bikini.

Different Opinions from West

I have spent several posts talking about the opinions about Han clothing in the eastern world. However, actually, the perspectives from the western world are way more positive and helpful for the Han clothing renewal movement. Because people in western countries are always more open to accept the “weird” thing. They admire old things, they accept new things, and Han clothing, in the contemporary society, is both.

Here is a picture of western people in Han clothing:

Source: Cold Rain

From my personal experience, I brought some Han clothing to America in my freshman year. I wore them for several times, unexpectedly, I got a lot of compliments from my foreign classmates while most of my Chinese classmates regard me as a weirdo, some of them even laugh at me for dressing like “a character in the costume piece”.

What’s more, I mentioned about the Han clothing in several of my classes like anthropology or linguistics. Surprisingly, most of my professors liked hearing it from me and showed large interests about it. In the meantime, every time I mentioned about Han clothing in front of my relatives in China, they would just interrupt me immediately, walk away, and tell my mom that there is something wrong with my mind.

Overall, from my personal experience and interviews, I realized that people from western countries maintain that Han clothing is beautiful and creative, they would be willing to see more people put it on, but apparently, they do not value the culture behind the clothes, all of those are more like a game to them. They are interested in it, but they won’t value it like the Chinese did. That is why if they want to bring back the precious culture, the only one they can rely on is themselves. If they cannot convince themselves to open their mind like the western people did, they will always fail.

Han Clothing Routinization

As the previous post mentioned, Han clothing development is in a depression now. However, luckily, an increasing number of Chinese started joining the Han clothing renewal movement now. The primary goal they have in mind is to let more people know about it by seeing it often in their real life, and they named it as “Han clothing routinization”.

Here are some pictures of Han clothing routinization:

Source: Haipeng Wang

The original idea of Han clothing routinization is to let more people going out while dressing the Han clothing. However, because most of the modern Chinese people cannot accept Han clothing right now, people need to take risks for hanging out with the Han clothing on. Then they came up with a better idea to support the routinization movement: wearing part of the Han clothing and part of the modern clothes rather than putting on the whole set of Han clothing. It can make them look less weird.

This idea works effectively, more and more volunteers joined this movement. Although the “Han clothing routinization” only continued for a few years, it already helps pushing the Han clothing renewal movement into a brand new stage. Over 500,000 people joined this movement, an increasing number of Chinese start to know about their own traditional clothing and stop mixing it up with Japanese Kimono or Korean Hanbok; fewer people continue judge the ones who wear Han clothing in public, etc.

Now, this routinization becomes a worldwide thing. A lot of overseas Chinese are contributing to it as well. I did that sometimes as well. We believed that as long as we keep trying, people who are stubborn will change their mind to accept Han clothing to their daily life or even important ceremonies eventually, and the culture behind it will be remembered as well.

Han Clothing in Modern Society

As I mentioned before in my previous posts, comparing to the Japanese Kimono and Korean Hanbok, Chinese Hanfu has a much longer history. However, in the contemporary society, Hanfu is the one that has been ignored mostly. Except a small group of people who studied it, almost no one wears it in daily life, or important ceremonies, or even traditional holidays. As a matter of fact, more than 81% of Chinese citizens are not familiar with it.

Of course, this pathetic consequence came with a reason. Ever since 1644, China was transformed to Qing dynasty, which was ruled by the Manchu, another nationality in China. However, as I introduced before, Hanfu is the traditional clothing for the Han nationality. That is why the king of Qing dynasty ordered to stop people from wearing it in order to consolidate their power. This order lasted for about 300 years. During this period of time, Hanfu gradually disappeared from people’s life.

Here is a picture of the burning event:

Source: Minzhong Zhuge

What’s more, because Japanese Kimono and Korean Hanbok are both somehow derived from the traditional Chinese clothing, people who do not know them well nowadays always mix them up. In 2010, over 100 people in Chongqing province caught a girl in Hanfu, misunderstood it with Japanese Kimono, asked her to take it off, and set it on fire. It is the most pathetic thing ever in the Hanfu history. How could Han clothing develop healthily when the first impression of it from the Chinese people is “This is a traditional clothing from the other country ”?

Taking all the points of views into consideration, the development of traditional Chinese clothing is trapped in a hard time now. If Han Chinese people cannot wake up now and start to revive it, not only the clothes, but also the precious spirit and culture behind the clothing of the whole nation, might extinct soon.

Hanbok vs. Hanfu

Korean culture is also somehow derived from traditional Chinese culture like Japanese culture, so does their traditional clothing. However, it developed in a different way from Japan. We discussed about the Japanese Kimono in the previous post, and today is the chance to compare the Korean Hanbok with the Chinese Hanfu.

Hanbok:

Hanbok is the traditional Korean clothing. It derived from the Chinese Aoqun that I mentioned before in the previous post. Unlike Japanese Kimono, Korean only made a few slight changes based on the original traditional Chinese clothing, and that's why a lot of people still mix them up in the contemporary society.

Here are some pictures of Hanbok vs. Hanfu:

Source: Batu 

As we can see from the above pictures, the most obvious difference between Hanbok and Hanfu is the length of the top. Korean Hanbok's top is clearly much shorter than Chinese Hanfu. Also, the dress of Korean Hanbok is in a conical shape like the modern bubble skirt, while all the traditional Chinese dresses are straight down without changing in shapes because “being upright” is the most important message that our ancestors tried to deliver to us by designing the clothes. What’s more, Korean Hanbok prefer using bright and warm colors like red or yellow while Chinese Hanfu are almost in cold color like blue or green because their tradition teaches them to be low-key.

Unlike Japanese Kimono, Korean Hanbok had been in a depression time just like Chinese Hanfu. People stop wearing it in daily life and start to re-design it in order to make it fit the modern society easily. However, the good news is that it is still a tradition to wear the Hanbok in the important ceremonies or holidays while Chinese wear modern clothes under every situation.

Kimono vs. Hanfu

Eastern cultures are all somehow similar, especially those countries that are located around China, like Japan. There is no doubt that Japan has its own traditional clothing in history as well. For this post, I would like to compare the traditional Japanese clothing Kimono with the traditional Chinese clothing--Hanfu.

Kimono:

Kimono is the traditional Japanese clothing. It derived from the Chinese curving-front garment that I mentioned before in the previous post. However, Japanese ancestors made some obvious changes based on it.

Here are some pictures of Kimono vs. Hanfu:

Source: Xiaoyue

Firstly, if you put the Kimono on the floor, you can easily find out that there is no curve on it. All the lines are straight, which means that once if you put it on, you will find out that it cannot show your figure at all. However, that is exactly what the Japanese ancestors want. They want to make themselves look calm, serious, and peaceful. On the contrary, Hanfu wants to show your figures in a positive way. It fits perfectly when you put it on and the curve will make you look prettier and thinner.

What’s more, because Japan is an island country, the weather there is always warm and humid, which means that the air permeability of Kimono should be super great in order to make people feel cooler and more comfortable. However, Hanfu will cover most of your body thoroughly in order to ensure that no one else can see your body skin except your family members.

The most important difference is that Japanese people still wear the Kimono in holidays or even everyday life nowadays, while most Chinese people just forget about the fact that Hanfu is their traditional clothings. I guess that is why, although Japan has a shorter history, it has a better cultural atmosphere. It is important to get to know your own culture.