Traditional Chinese clothes

Minty · 8 Apr 2006

Many people in the west has stereotypes of Chinese's traditional clothing to be the shape-wise uncomplimentary, clunky clothing of the Qing dynasty, with the comical petite Manchurian hats and pigtails.

This is because after when the Manchurians came to occupy China, they imposed their clothing on the Hans.

The real traditional Han's clothing is not really known by people of many other nations. Many people from other nations also don't know that the aristocracy adopted Chinese-style court robe during the Nara period (710-794), chiefly the long gown; in Japanese hands this turned into the kimono, which perpetuates peculiarly the women's fashion of Tang dynasty China.

In comparison to what most people in the globe believe traditional Chinese clothing to be (QiPao, queues, Manchurian style clothing), Hanfu is by far prettier and more elegant, and since that it symbolizes the large majority of the Chinese people (Hans) for the large majority of their history, I think it should be brought back for restoring the national conventional attire for Chinese females in the future.

nice gaijin · 8 Apr 2006

Are those images movie stills? the people look familiar...:?

I think that a return to traditional han fashion would end up being something played out on the runway, and less likely to actually influence the clothing of the common people. That's not to say it has any less merit, but to me it's a likely course of events.

suzhouboy · 8 Apr 2006

yes, han's culture seems is returning in china now~

dreamer · 9 Apr 2006

Yeah from my friends photos it seems like this kind of costumes is quite popular at the moment.
Still I doubt I'll ever get to try one ^^

Minty · 9 Apr 2006

Are those images movie stills? the people look familiar...

I think most of those are images taken from series; I got them from other people. I hardly watch Chinese movies or series anymore because I married a Frenchman but I can find out if you want.:hihi:

yes, han's culture seems is returning in china now~

Thatfs good to hear! I also heard that last year mainland China has returned Confucius's pedagogies into educational curriculum.:note:

Yeah from my friends photos it seems like this kind of costumes is quite popular at the moment.
Still I doubt I'll ever get to try one ^^

Hmm you never know, personally I would like to wear one to take pictures with, personal portraits offered at those Chinese photography shops only have kimono, QiPao or the Manchurian style clothing, they never have Hanfu hence I am very disappointed.

nurizeko · 9 Apr 2006

cultural dress is religated to museums, special events and stuff.

Not a single scotsman in his right mind wears a kilt outside of a wedding or something.

Nice dress, but im convinced those clothes will remain the preserve of chinese TV and movies.

Minty · 10 Apr 2006

nurizeko said:
cultural dress is religated to museums, special events and stuff.

Hmm I donft know about that, for the most part, Japanese people today wear western clothes in their everyday life, but the traditional Japanese clothing (kimono) is still popular both as formal attire and as clothing for the home.

They also wear them in New Year holidays, college graduation parties, wedding ceremonies and receptions as well as funeral services.:hihi: I wouldn't say cultural dress is religated to Japanese or anything.

I would like our traditional "Hanfu" to be brought back so that people of other nations don't keep on mistaking Mancurian's clothing as the chinese traditional clothes.:cheer:

Not a single scotsman in his right mind wears a kilt outside of a wedding or something.

I don't know about Scotsmen, but I do think people of other nations do know what traditional Scottish costumes look like.

Nice dress, but im convinced those clothes will remain the preserve of chinese TV and movies.

I think the recent introduction of "Wuxia" movies (martial arts Chinese movies) into the western cinemas is doing the job of promoting Hanfu.:haihai:

miss_strawberry · 13 Apr 2006

woooooooooow fantastic dresses.. i like it ^_^ .. bring me one if u went to china ^_^ lool.. i like chinees dress more than other asians countries..i think that they r the original people of history and dress in All Asia..

cyberryo · 15 Apr 2006

The difference in desing between the Song, Ming and Qing is a great insight. Somehow, I have never been able to differentiate the period by just looking at the dressing of the actors on the movies etc. Will keep a lookout now. Thanks.

I would love to try out the Han clothes but somehow I don't think that I would look good with modern day hair style...Would look better with a beard?

Minty · 16 Apr 2006

:wave: Hi there,

The difference in desing between the Song, Ming and Qing is a great insight. Somehow, I have never been able to differentiate the period by just looking at the dressing of the actors on the movies etc. Will keep a lookout now. Thanks.

I think Qing and Yuan dynasty are the easiest to differentiate from the rest because they are not Han and their clothes are very different. But Tang is also quite unique because the design is sexier for women. And for men the bureaucrats in the Tang dynasty wore unique hats (with the two side-flags).

As shown in picture below:

Here are some sites regarding clothing worn by people of Tang dynasty:
http://falunau.org/insightsArticle.jsp?itemID=463
http://cat.middlebury.edu/~slides/inactive...mages/aa064.jpg
http://www.pitt.edu/~asian/week-10/TangFigure.jpg
http://www.pitt.edu/~asian/week-10/10-5.JPG
http://www.pitt.edu/~asian/week-10/10-7.JPG
http://www.chinapage.org/painting/tangtaizong2.html

The Tang dynasty was more bountiful and broad-minded towards sexuality (especially for women) in comparison to other dynastys which were more buttoned-down. As a matter of fact, Tang dynasty treated 'round' or 'meaty' women as somewhat more beautiful than slender or thin women. Hence, the Tang dynastyfs clothes for women were invented to display more skin or to show their cleavages and their boobs, some of the clothes were designed in fancy lacelike style and have appeared to be very voluptuous.

Other dynasties such as Ming, Song..etc were more cautious and were designed to hide the body shape more than the Tang dynastyfs designs.
Here are some sites about sung dynasty

http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/song/econ/rice/rice.htm
http://www.npm.gov.tw/exhbition/song/english/life/m8.htm
http://libsrv.skidmore.edu/REDSKID/full/94737.jpg
http://libsrv.skidmore.edu/REDSKID/full/94738.jpg

If you can read Chinese, please refer to
http://culture.dresschina.com/ancient_dress/ (it's a good site).

For military Chinese clothes in the past, refer to
http://culture.qianlong.com/6931/2004/04/14/41@2001136.htm

This is another website I found about traditional chinese clothes:
http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/china/clothing

I would love to try out the Han clothes but somehow I don't think that I would look good with modern day hair style...Would look better with a beard?

I think it should be ok even with modern day hair style because the Japanese men also dressed in kimono with modern day hairstyles. I found a Chinese guy in Hanfu with modern day hair style. Please see picture below:

Minty · 16 Apr 2006

miss_strawberry said:
woooooooooow fantastic dresses.. i like it ^_^ .. bring me one if u went to china ^_^ lool.. i like chinees dress more than other asians countries..i think that they r the original people of history and dress in All Asia..

That's nice to hear, I think they are promoting Hanfu in China; maybe in the future they will be available everywhere like the Kimono.

Elizabeth van Kampen · 16 Apr 2006

I would have loved to visit China, but alas I don't have the money.
My interest in China started by reading the books written by Pearl Buck, yes I know that is really a long time ago.

Very nice that some of the old fashions are coming back again,they look beautiful and very elegant!
And then the Confucius's pedagogies coming back again? Wow that's wonderful.

Rotterdam is starting to build a big China town, so I will visit China overhere near the harbour of Rotterdam.

dreamer · 16 Apr 2006

Confucius has been popular for quite some time now. The main problem is that the original texts don't have any points, comas, question marks or any of the other signs. Therefore, the interpretations are sometimes the complete opposite, depending on how you read a sentence.

Minty · 17 Apr 2006

Elizabeth van Kampen said:
I would have loved to visit China, but alas I don't have the money.

Maybe in the future...you will, you never know. I never thought I would marry a Frenchman.:blush:

My interest in China started by reading the books written by Pearl Buck, yes I know that is really a long time ago.

Oh, what are their titles?

Very nice that some of the old fashions are coming back again,they look beautiful and very elegant!

Indeed, I much prefer Han fu over the Manchurian style clothes.

And then the Confucius's pedagogies coming back again? Wow that's wonderful.

That's what I heard. Confucius ideology:122: is much better than "the red book":131: , I hope it will override the red book as a come back in the future in the Mainland.

Rotterdam is starting to build a big China town, so I will visit China overhere near the harbour of Rotterdam.

That's nice. Are there many Chinese in the Netherlands?:clueless:

Minty · 17 Apr 2006

dreamer said:
Confucius has been popular for quite some time now. The main problem is that the original texts don't have any points, comas, question marks or any of the other signs. Therefore, the interpretations are sometimes the complete opposite, depending on how you read a sentence.

You know I actually know very little about Confucius because I only have primary school education in Chinese.

As I was born in Malaysia the Chinese school I went to have lower level of Chinese than say in HK, Taiwan, and China. This was because we also had to learn English and Malay. But since I came from Chinese school my Malay was never good, and since my immigration to Australia I almost forgotten it all because I never used it anymore.

My English has always been better than Malay because of English tuition school plus switching of my education to English.

I am actually catching up now in my own private readings to do with Confucius. :note:

If you have any insights about the philosophy of Confucius, please do share.

Elizabeth van Kampen · 18 Apr 2006

Hello Minty,

Some of the titles of Pearl Buck's books are "The Good Earth", "The Imperial Woman", and the The Pavillion of Women".
Pearl Buck grew up in China before WW II.

One of my school friends in Indonesia was a Chinese girl.We had several Chine children at our school, and most of them were the best students/
Japanese prefered their own schools, only a few went to Dutch schools.

Yes we have many Chinese immigrants in Holland, all having restaurants all over the country. They are very hard working people.
We call them our best immigrants.

dreamer · 18 Apr 2006

Sorry dear Minty but I don't have any specific insight about confucius himself since I can barely read chinese and there's many versions of his books. I just happened to make a presentation on China and came into this information, that's all ^^'

Minty · 19 Apr 2006

Elizabeth van Kampen said:
Hello Minty,
Some of the titles of Pearl Buck's books are "The Good Earth", "The Imperial Woman", and the The Pavillion of Women".
Pearl Buck grew up in China before WW II.
One of my school friends in Indonesia was a Chinese girl.We had several Chine children at our school, and most of them were the best students/
Japanese prefered their own schools, only a few went to Dutch schools.
Yes we have many Chinese immigrants in Holland, all having restaurants all over the country. They are very hard working people.
We call them our best immigrants.

Ok thanks, I am glad Chinese immigrants are not dislike by the host country.

Minty · 19 Apr 2006

dreamer said:
Sorry dear Minty but I don't have any specific insight about confucius himself since I can barely read chinese and there's many versions of his books. I just happened to make a presentation on China and came into this information, that's all ^^'

Right, I heard you are learning Mandarin; do you study any of the Chinese history or studies in Uni?

dreamer · 20 Apr 2006

Well we do have some chinese History course, but it's only common knowledge, like the different dynasties, evolution of the clothing styles and so on.

Precious4e · 23 Apr 2006

I definitely liked the clothes that China had during the Tang dynasty. But yea, these outfits will most likely be limited to Chinese period dramas. But I agree that people should know that traditional Chinese clothes is not limited to qipaos.

mingo · 25 Apr 2006

it's really hard to define one period of chinese cloth as traditional, may be we have more than one type of traditional cloth. what we wear today may be the traditional cloth of tomorrow ..

Minty · 27 Apr 2006

mingo said:
it's really hard to define one period of chinese cloth as traditional, may be we have more than one type of traditional cloth. what we wear today may be the traditional cloth of tomorrow ..

Yes the clothes of the various dynasties ruled by the Hans are quite hard to distinguish.

But the dynasties ruled by the Mongolians and the Manchurians called the Yuan and the Qing dynasty, their clothing imposed on the Hans were quite different.

You can take a look at the movie "Couching Tiger Hidden Dragon" or "The Last Emperor" where the time periods are set in the Qing Dynasty ruled by the Manchurians.

For Tang dynasty you can take a look at the movie "House of Flying Daggers."

For Qin Dynasty you can take a look at the movie "Hero."

As for Yuan dynasty ruled by the Mongolians over China, I don't know any movie in English where people wear Mongolian clothes. I will search for their traditional clothes on the net for you. Here is one website about it:

http://www.discovermongolia.mn/country/Traditional_Clothes.html

I have also tried to explain the differences of the different dynastiesf clothes in Post 10.:haihai:

Minty · 18 May 2006

Not only is the Kimono influenced by the Hanfu the Korean "Hanbok" is influenced by Hanfu as well.

Minty · 29 May 2006

Hanfu has been used in China now as graduation robe.

The bottom right is the current master degree graduation robe (Western style). The top left is bachelor degree robe; top right is master degree robe; centre right is PhD robe...

Different colours in the collars' sections stand for different degrees. When the collar is Yellow it represents engineer (H‰È). Pink represents liberal arts (•¶‰È). Gray represents science (—‰È). Green represents agricultural school (农‰È). White represents medical (ˆã‰È). And lastly Red represents military (军‰È).

The design of Han-style gradation robe kind of looks like the Hanfs Emperorfs robe. :blush:

Wuhan academy has already gone ahead and did a graduation ceremony this spring in Hanfu (Han's clothes):

http://news.sina.com.cn/s/p/2006-05-16/20499878672.shtml

http://society.dayoo.com/gb/content/2006-0...ent_2507700.htm

Traditional Chinese clothes

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