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:

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.

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.

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.