WEEKEND LIFE DAILY » CHINADAILY.COM.CN/LIFE March 3­4, 2018

COVER STORY

Han cultural activities have frequently been organized by aficionados in recent years to promote the traditional culture and clothes of Han people. PHOTOS PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY CLOTHING FIT FOR A PEOPLE They feel more comfortable in voluminous robes than in a taut pair of jeans, and these advocates of a clothing style that goes back thousands of years are determined to ensure it remains with us for a long time yet

By XING WEN host country on the final day of the However, the creation of the tangzhu­ time­honored clothing.” [email protected] forum, and speculation about what ang and the debate surrounding it She realized that few of her form this would take had become a pop­ appear to have been the genesis of a acquaintances had heard of hanfu, ne Sunday afternoon a little ular guessing game. However, in China movement whose members show no and all the information she got about it more than 16 years ago, 17 that guessing took a serious turn, with sign of being content for their preferred came from Baidu Tieba and the web­ men and three women who earnest debate about what, in this con­ garb to be mere space fillers in a war­ site hanchc.com, where a movement to stood in a row at the Shang­ text, the term “traditional Chinese” drobe. These are the aficionados of tra­ rejuvenate hanfu germinated. Ohai Science and Technology Museum could possibly mean. ditional clothing based on that worn by The dress on which contemporary were given a worldwide fanfare – and it The result was the tangzhuang, a the country’s ethnic majority, the Han, hanfu clothing is based appeared as was as much what they were wearing hybrid based on (1644­ 5,000 years ago. long as 5,000 years ago and prevailed as what they had been talking about 1911) clothing and other, more modern, Though the term tangzhuang was through different dynasties in Chinese that grabbed the world’s attention. elements. A little more than 20 years deployed to describe the APEC , history until the Manchu established People’s Daily reported that the main after China began to open up to the there was no Chinese word in the early the Qing Dynasty in 1644. The Qing element was “a satin jacket featuring world, and just three weeks before it 2000s to denote clothing from the Han regime banned the wearing of ­style and became a member of the World Trade Dynasty, and the term eventually coined clothes, and for the masses the custom round flower patterns with peonies Organization, the aim of the forum was hanfu (Han clothing). The irony is of dressing in such clothing gradually surrounding the four letters of APEC, organizers was apparently to highlight that what has led to a revival in this cen­ disappeared. and a white shirt”. They came in six not only the country’s traditions but its turies­old style of clothing and that Four years after Wang came across colors, , blue, olive green, brown, modernity as well. keeps the flame flickering is 21st­centu­ the Baidu Tieba group, she attended a burgundy and black. Zhao Jianhua, in his book The Chinese ry technology — the internet and social hair­pinning ceremony, a traditional Those who wore these on Oct Fashion Industry: An Ethnographic networking. rite that marks Han girls’ passage into 21, 2001 were the leaders of the Asia­Pa­ Approach, says that the tangzhuang One aficionado of hanfu is Wang adulthood, at the Jinan Fuxue Confuci­ cific Economic Cooperation forum econ­ became extremely popular after the Tianjiao, 26, of Shandong province. us Temple, built during the Song omies, holding their annual meeting in APEC meeting, but that in essence it was a “Tieba is where I first learned about Dynasty (960­1279) and restored as a China for the first time since its founding fad that lasted for little more than a cou­ hanfu 11 years ago,” Wang says, refer­ tribute to Confucius in 2005. 12 years earlier. ple of years, even if the garment has ring to the community online forum Such activities have frequently been It had become the custom for the become a set piece in the Chinese war­ Baidu Tieba. leaders to don traditional clothes of the drobe. Wang Tianjiao, hanfu aficionado. “I was absolutely spellbound by this See Clothing page 15

Main illustration for the third Hanfu Cultural Fes­ tival in Xitang in 2015: 16 men in feiyufu, clothes worn by the imperial guards of the Ming Dynasty (1368­1644).

WHAT’S INSIDE

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Tradition: Using dogs to catch rabbits is a Cello: On March 10, Gabriel Schwabe will per­ Trend: For 2018, the color of the year is traditional activity in Pucheng, Shaanxi prov­ form with the China NCPA Orchestra under the ultra violet, a blue­based purple that’s ince. A new push is on to revive and promote baton of Chinese conductor Zhang Guoyong at referred to as mysterious, spiritual and the activity. the National Centre for the Performing Arts. intuitive.

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