BellaOnline Forums Travel and Culture Chinese Culture Han Chinese Clothes

You might think the traditional clothes of Chinese people are Tangzhuang and Qipao, but this is not the fact.

Han Chinese people had worn their own clothes - hanfu for thousands years before the invasion of Manchu army more than 360 years ago. During the establishment of Manchu-Qing dynasty in China, Han people were forced to give up their own clothes and shave the hair to be pigtail style. After Manchu-Qing dynasty was overthrown by Sun at the beginning of 20th century, the pigtail style hair was abolished, but Machu clothes was reserved because people could hardly remember their own colthes - hanfu. Nowadays, Manchu clothes have developed to be so-called Tangzhuang and Qipao, but they could not represent Chinese traditional clothes while Han people compose 92% of the total Chinese population.

There's a good news, more and more Han people wake up to the signality of traditional clothes, and start to redress the clothes which have been lost for more than 360 years by doing a lot of study through the history books and heritage. Of course, hanfu can hardly be dressed everyday in modern society, but on some important traditional festivals, it would be very nice and significative, just like the situation of kimono in Japan, you may find hanfu is similar to kimono because kimono was derived from hanfu in ancient China.

Here's a forum specially talking about hanfu:
http://c.1asphost.com/hanfu/forum

Young people dressed in hanfu:

Pianpian,

Sorry for the delay in answering. Been busy with some travel and work lately but it's finally come to a close here and I can concentrate on the site again.

Thanks for the link to your forum. I'll definitely try to stop by. You are absolutely correct that what is viewed as traditional Chinese today only represents one time period and one nationality at best these days. There's a lot of Chinese dresses that have been lost over time. You reminded me I wanted to get back to that series.


PS -- Incidentally, I did cover that style in one of my articles but I've always known it as pien-fu. (Article here) Is your naming of it a dilectual thing or a new movement to rerecognize that style of clothing?

Thanks for your concentration, the forum I have recommended is the only one I can find in English version which is specialized in the discussion on that style of clothing, but it seems so calm. For the meaning of hanfu, you can find detailed explanation by Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Chinese_clothing).

The reappearance of hanfu is regarded as a movement leading to the renaissance of Han Chinese civilization. In history, Han Chinese has created one of the most glorious civilizations in the world, unfortunately, it has been destroyed too much in recent hundreds years.

Pianpian,

I am glad for its reappearance as I've always loved that style. I've actually tried to recreate the outfit by myself, none too successfully as I'm not great at sewing and figuring out lengths on myself. I was just curious as to the terminology. Growing up I had heard of the shen'i (my Grandmother loved Chinese Opera, where you still see a lot of the older outfits) and the pien-fu, but never heard it called "Han fu". It makes sense but it was never called that by my parents which made me curious if it was a dialect or regional terminology. My parents are from the Shanghai area. I have some distant family now in Guangdong but it's mostly relocated there from the Cultural Revolution period.

If you read Chinese, I suggest you visit this forum: http://www.haanen.com/bbs/list.asp?boardid=42.
You will get a clear understanding there.

Did the Mandchu impose the Han to change their traditional clothes? Where can I get some more information?

Yes, as you may find most of current popular Chinese clothes are Manchu style. For the information, I think you should study the history of the establishment of Qing dynasty, when Han men were forced to shave the hair to be pigtail under the order, they were also forced to throw away their own clothes and dress Manchu clothes. Ten millions of Han people were slaughtered because they refused the order of Manchu ruler. The most famous historic incident is "Ten days at Yangzhou", in this incident, Manchu Qing army had massacred eight hundred thousand of the citizens in 10 days of slaughter after they occupied Yangzhou city.