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.

Matching Outfits

After dressing up the beautiful traditional Chinese clothing with adorable accessories, in order to make them look special and prettier in different seasons, ancient Chinese people will put on some matching outfits as well. I would like to introduce two most common types of matching outfit today: big sleeve unlined upper garment and cloak.

Big sleeve unlined upper garment:

The big sleeve unlined upper garment was created in Tang dynasty along with the Qixiong Ruqun, which I mentioned in the previous post. It was initially designed to match the Ruqun clothes in summer. Just as its name indicates, the main feature of it is its broad sleeves. For the sleeves of this clothing, not only the length should be at least 78 inches, but also the width ought to exceed 40 inches in order to reach the standard level. The material of the big sleeve unlined upper garment is generally thin and light, like silk, because people only wear it for beauty in the summer. It is more like a decoration rather than a clothes.

Here is a picture of big sleeve unlined upper garment:

Source: Flying Bee

Cloak:

The cloak was created to prevent people from wind and snow in winter. It can be rather long enough to reach the ankle or short enough to only exceed the hip. In order to make it seem warmer, people usually put animal’s fur around the cloak. Also, they usually embroider on it in order to make it prettier and more special. Nowadays, the cloak gradually becomes thinner and thinner so that people can wear it either in autumn or in spring as well.

Here are some pictures of cloak:

Source: Flying Bee

Underwear

Do not ever belittle the wisdom of our ancestors. Although they lived a thousand years ago, they’ve already figured out the importance of underwears. In fact, females in ancient China need to dress at least two layers of underwear before they put on the outerwear. Today, I will to introduce those two layers of underwear: the inner clothes and the middle clothes.

Inner clothes:

The inner clothes are only required for females in archaic society, because China is a country which people look up to men and down on women. They believed that women should wear more to cover their bodies. The inner clothes play a role as a brassiere does in the contemporary society, but they are longer and thicker. They can cover not only the breasts, but also the belly, which means that it looks like a vest. However, forms of inner clothes changed with dynasty, so there are no typical inner clothes for traditional Chinese clothing.

Here is a picture of one of the inner clothes:

Source: Xitang

Middle clothes:

The middle clothes are suitable for both males and females. They are designed in the same way as the normal Ruqun that I introduced in the second post. It is generally white in order to fit all the outfit colors. Regardless of the fact that it looks like a normal Ruqun, it can only be worn inside of the other clothes. Going out with only the middle clothes will be regarded as impolite and indecent in ancient time. However, it can be dressed as pajamas while people were sleeping or just staying at home, also, people are required to dress the middle clothes while they were dressing the formal attire for important events.

Here is a picture of middle clothes:

Source: Lady Xi

Curving-front Garment

Qin dynasty is the first official dynasty in China. People gradually began to get rid of the barbarian lifestyle during the Qin dynasty. During that time, they invented the curving-front garment, the most ceremonious Han clothing which was also known as Quju. It is suitable for both male and female, and the most noticeable feature of Quju is its diagonal body wrapping.

Here is a picture of curving-front garment:

Source: Recover Group

Argument:

While modern Chinese started to recreate the traditional Chinese
clothing, they argued a lot about the form of curving-front garment. The argument can be divided into two parts. On the one hand, someone believed that the length of the sleeve on curving-front garment should be as short as most of the modern clothes, but the researchers argued that ancient people actually prefer long sleeve, because it can pretend them from wind and cold. It also looks more elegant while the sleeves are long enough to hide people's hand. Acting in accordance with their research, the sleeves should be at least 75 inches long.

On the other hand, someone insists to make the bottom of curving-front garment like a curve, because they think it looks beautiful this way. However, now some expertises argued that the bottom should be straight, because our ancestors wanted to indicate that it is essential to be an upright person. What's more, this design can make the clothes tenser while walking, so people will look gentle and elegant if the bottom is straight.

However, overall, even if there exist a lot of argument around the curving-front garment, we can't deny that it is one of the most important forms of traditional Chinese clothing. People ought to wear it in those important, serious situations because they seem sacred in it.