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#Tang Dynasty Artifacts
chinesehanfu · 1 year
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【Reference Tang Dynasty Artifacts】:
・Nao Sao Hairstyle (闹扫髻) Female Figurine, Collection of Wuhan Museum
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・Tang Dynasty Female Figurine with Nao Sao Hairstyle (闹扫髻)
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[Hanfu · 漢服]Chinese Tang Dynasty Traditional Clothing Hanfu & Hairstyle Based On  Female Figurine-【Late Tang Period】
Women's Clothing, Hairstyle and Makeup in the Late Tang Dynasty
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【History Note】
In the late Tang Dynasty, women's daily attire was still dominated by a combination of shirts (Shan/衫), skirts (Qun/裙), and Pibo (披帛), but compared with the mid-Tang Period, which advocated the sharp silhouette of the upper small and the lower large, the late Tang Period was more fashionable to create a rounded and loose silhouette.
At the same time, the exaggerated and peculiar style in the middle Tang Dynasty is still prosperous. In terms of hairstyle, all kinds of asymmetrical hairstyle are popular, and it is fashionable to wrap the hair bun with various precious fabrics, which has both practical functions and decorative features. “五陵年少争缠头,一曲红绡不知数“”(From the narrative poem "Pipa Xing /琵琶行 “by Bai Juyi in the Tang Dynasty)” is Refers to such attire.
“五陵年少争缠头,一曲红绡不知数”
It refers to "The wealthy children of the capital are scrambling to give me rewards, and every time a song (play pipa) is played, I will got countless beautiful brocades (红绡)
About the makeup, as Tang Dynasty poet Bai Juyi, described in his poem "Shishi Zhuang/时世妆" :”乌膏注唇唇似泥,双眉画作八字低”
The black cream is applied to the lips and lips are like mud, and the eyebrows are painted with low “八 (chinese character "eight")”shape.
This is a popular makeup look in the mid-Tang Period and it continued to the late Tang.
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Recreation Work:@裝束复原
🔗Weibo:https://weibo.com/1656910125/MasyqfRSy
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artifacts-archive · 12 days
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Stem Cup
China, Tang dynasty (618–906)
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blueiskewl · 1 year
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1.5 Tons of Ancient Bronze Coins Found in China
A massive hoard of 1.5 tons of bronze coins dating to the Tang (618-907) and Song (960-1279) dynasties has been unearthed in the village of Shuangdun in eastern China’s Jiangsu province. The coins were strong together with straw ropes and arranged in tidy stacks.
The uncovered coins were well-preserved, and most of them had clear inscriptions, suggesting important value for further research.
In ancient China, such hoards were often buried in the ground so as to preserve precious porcelain, coins, metal tools, and other valuables, said the researchers.
Seventy wells were also found around the coin hoard, which was near the battle frontline of the Song and Jin troops, making the researchers wonder whether the excavation site belonged to a hutted camp.
Most of the coins in the hoard are from the Song dynasty wens. Bronze wens were the common currency of the period until a severe copper shortage forced the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279) to issue coins of lower quality and value. Iron was hard to mint and rusted too easily once in circulation. Due to the scarcity of bronze coinage, the government was forced to cut military wages in half in 1161, ultimately leading to the emergence of paper money. In 1170, the state began to require that half of all taxes be paid with Huizi paper currency stepped into the breach.
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yourantiquarian · 1 day
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Chinese statuette of a horse
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ITEM Statuette of a horse MATERIAL Pottery CULTURE Chinese, Tang Dynasty PERIOD 618 - 907 A.D DIMENSIONS 560 mm x 530 mm x 200 mm CONDITION Good condition. Includes Thermoluminescence test by Laboratory Kotalla (Reference 02PR101220) PROVENANCE Ex Belgian private collection (2022), Ex English art gallery, Ex English private collection, D.R, acquired in 1990s The Tang Dynasty, which ruled China from 618 to 907 AD, is often regarded as one of the most glorious periods in Chinese history, characterized by political stability, economic prosperity, and remarkable cultural achievements. Established by the Li family, the dynasty saw significant advancements in various fields, including poetry, painting, calligraphy, and technology. The Tang Dynasty was renowned for its cosmopolitanism, with influences from Central Asia, India, and the Middle East contributing to its vibrant cultural landscape. Under Tang rule, China experienced a golden age of literature and art, with figures like Li Bai and Du Fu flourishing in poetry and artists such as Wu Daozi making significant contributions to painting. During the Tang Dynasty, the tradition of producing horse statuettes continued, reflecting the enduring significance of horses in Chinese society. These horse statuettes, often referred to as Minqi horse sculptures, maintained the artistic excellence established in earlier periods and further developed under Tang patronage. Read the full article
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worldhistoryfacts · 3 months
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What were the rituals and practices of the medieval Asian Christian? What did their worshippers look like? We don’t have many clues, but there are a few works of art that remain. In Qocho, a town that is today located in Chinese Xinjiang but, in the early Middle Ages, was part of a separate kingdom to the west of the Tang Dynasty, there are a few cave paintings of Christian practice. Here, Buddhism, Christianity, and Manichaeism all mingled and were memorialized. These murals, now in a German museum, were once on the walls of the Christian church.
We see a woman praying, perhaps repenting for her sins:
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And a rite — perhaps a Palm Sunday ritual — in which worshippers bring branches to a priest:
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Much more on Asian Christianity here:
{Buy me a coffee} {WHF} {Medium} {Looking Through the Past}
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tendaysofrain · 1 year
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Random Stuff #12:  What is Simplified Chinese?
For people like me who grew up speaking and using Chinese in day to day life, the vast majority of us have at least a basic understanding of what Simplified Chinese is, but it wasn’t until some days ago when an English speaker asked me “what is Simplified Chinese?” that I realized not many people here understand what Simplified Chinese is.  So, I’ve gathered some misconceptions I’ve encountered both in real life and online, and I will try to answer them in a concise but factual manner.
But first, let us talk basics.  There are three things we must cover first before going into this topic.  The first is the fact that both Simplified Chinese (简体中文) and Traditional Chinese (繁體中文) used today are modern standardized systems of written Chinese, as in both were compiled within the past 100 years or so (modern Simplified from 1935-1936, then again from 1956 and on; modern Traditional starting from 1973), and the two currently widely used versions of both systems were officially standardized in the past 50 years (modern Simplified current version standardized in 2013; modern Traditional current version standardized in 1982).  However, since simplified characters already exist in history (called 简化字/簡化字 or 俗体字/俗體字/”informal characters”), and “Traditional Chinese” can be taken to mean “written Chinese used in history”, in this post I will use “modern Simplified/Traditional Chinese” or “modern Simplified/Traditional” when referring to the currently used modern standardized systems.  
Second is the evolution of written Chinese.  Usually when this is taught, instructors use examples of how certain characters evolved over time, for example one might encounter a linear diagram like this in Chinese class:
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(Original picture from Mandarinpedia)
However, this diagram only gives a very general idea of how characters evolved from more picture-like logograms to the more abstract symbols we call characters today, and does not reflect the complexity of this evolution at all.  To get into these details we will need to talk about Chinese calligraphy.  In terms of the evolution of written Chinese, Chinese calligraphy--all those scripts like oracle bone script (甲骨文), bronze/Jinwen script (金文), Seal/Zhuan script (篆书/篆書), Clerical/Li script (隶书/隸書), Regular/Kai script (楷书/楷書), etc--they aren’t just calligraphy fonts, but actually change the way characters are written, and are representative of the commonly used forms of written Chinese at different points in Chinese history, as in the appearance of a certain script on a historical artifact can actually be used to estimate how old the artifact is.  Below is a (very) rough timeline of when each script appeared and when they are most popular:
Oracle bone script/Jiaguwen (甲骨文):  Shang dynasty (~1600 BC-1046 BC)
Bronze/Jinwen script (金文; includes Large Seal script/大篆):  Western Zhou dynasty (~1046 BC-771 BC)
Seal/Zhuan script (篆书/篆書; sometimes called Small Seal script/小篆 or Qin script/秦篆):  compiled in Qin dynasty by chancellor Li Si/李斯 around 221 BC, was the official script in Qin dynasty (221 BC-207 AD); popularity went down after Qin dynasty but was still in use for ceremonial purposes like official seals (the archaic meaning of 篆 is “official seal”, hence the English name); still in use today in very specific areas like seal stamps, calligraphy, logos, and art.
Clerical/Li script (隶书/隸書):  appeared in Qin dynasty, became the main script used in Han dynasty (202 BC-220 AD); popularity went down after Han dynasty but was still in use; still in use today in specific areas like calligraphy, inscriptions/signatures on traditional Chinese paintings, logos, and other art.
Regular/Kai script (楷书/楷書):  appeared in late Han dynasty, became the main script used in Tang dynasty and has been popular ever since (618 AD-present).
(Note:  there are other calligraphy scripts like Semi-Cursive script/行书/行書 and Cursive script/草书/草書 that were never mainstream yet were also significant, especially in the case of modern Simplified Chinese, but I will mention them later so this won’t become too confusing)
So if we plug the information from the very rough timeline above into the linear diagram, it becomes this:
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But wait!  There’s even more!  Because there is a thing called variant Chinese characters/异体字/異體字, which basically means that there have been multiple ways in which a character can be written (“one character, many forms”/一字多形), and these can come about as a result of homophones, personal preference of historically significant people, historical trends, mistakes in the past that stuck around, or the result of stylized scripts like Cursive script/草书/草書, which simplifies and connects strokes in a liberal manner.  The reason Cursive script is important here is because of the logographic nature of written Chinese, meaning the simplifying or connecting of strokes actually changes how the character is written.  Because of this, 马 and 馬 were forms that have already existed before modern Simplified and modern Traditional were compiled.  A diagram that takes variations and evolution into account should look something like this:
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And since the above diagram did not take Cursive script into account, here’s another picture of a myriad of scripts/fonts (not in chronological order) that includes 馬 in Cursive script (mostly on bottom left):
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Now you may have an idea of where modern Simplified and Traditional Chinese came from:  they are both compiled from existing variants.  Since both modern Simplified and modern Traditional are supposed to be standardizations of written Chinese, they each set a single variant for each character as the “standard”.  Modern Traditional Chinese kept the more historically mainstream 馬, and modern Simplified Chinese substituted it with the simpler variant 马.  Taking all of this into account but still keeping it concise for our topic here, our linear diagram from the beginning should be modified to look like this:
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And that’s just an example of a single character.  This evolution diagram can differ depending on the character too, due to there being other rules for simplifying characters.  This is why standardizing written Chinese is an immense amount of work, but once standardized, the written language will be streamlined and much easier to use in communication.
Finally, we are ready to clear some misconceptions.
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About Common Misconceptions Regarding Modern Simplified Chinese:
“Simplified Chinese replaced all Traditional Chinese characters”. Untrue.  Modern Simplified Chinese only standardized 2274 of the most used Chinese characters and 14 radicals with simpler variants.  That’s really all there is to it.   For reference there are a total of about 60,000 Chinese characters, and about 3,500 of these are deemed to be often-used characters; so only ~3.7% of all Chinese characters and ~65% of often-used Chinese characters are simplified in modern Simplified Chinese.  Play around with any online tool that can switch between modern Simplified and modern Traditional, and you will find that many characters stayed the same.
“Simplified Chinese is the opposite of Traditional Chinese”.  Untrue.  Modern Simplified Chinese is just a simplified and standardized system of written Chinese.  Modern Simplified Chinese and modern Traditional Chinese are not “opposites” of each other at all, just different standardized systems serving different purposes.  Modern Simplified was compiled with ease of use in mind, since Traditional characters can be time-consuming to write, for example imagine writing 聲 (sound) when you can just write 声 instead.  Also back when Simplified was being introduced to the public, a huge part of the population was illiterate, especially farmers, poor people, and women, so Simplified Chinese was a great way to quickly educate them on reading and writing, and to improve efficiency in all aspects of life. Knowing how to read and write is key to education, and education is a must if people's lives were to be improved at all.
“Simplified Chinese is Mandarin”.  Untrue.  Mandarin is a spoken dialect that came from Beijing dialect, and both modern Simplified and modern Traditional Chinese are modern standardized systems of written Chinese.  One concerns the written language and the other concerns a spoken dialect.
"Simplified Chinese was invented by the Communist Party". Untrue.  As mentioned before, most characters used in modern Simplified Chinese are already present in ancient texts, artifacts, and inscriptions as variants.  Apparently the only character simplified by PRC was 簾 (blinds/curtain), which became 帘 in modern Simplified Chinese. History wise, Republic of China was the first to start compiling Simplified Chinese in 1935 and introducing it to the public, but this was called off after 4 months.  PRC modified and built on the original plan, and introduced it to the public again starting from 1956.
"Simplified Chinese is to Traditional Chinese as Newspeak is to English in 1984". Completely untrue.  Modern Simplified Chinese is just a simplified way to write commonly used Chinese characters and does not alter the meaning of the characters.  There are some Traditional characters that are combined as one simplified character in modern Simplified, but the meanings are not lost or altered.  For example, 發 fā (development) and 髪 fà (hair) are combined as 发 in modern Simplified, resulting in 发 having 2 different pronunciations (both fā and fà), and each of these pronunciations carrying their original meaning.  The meaning of neither 發 nor 髪 was lost, 发 will just have a longer dictionary entry.
"Simplified Chinese is a huge change from Traditional Chinese". Only partly true in that it is a change, but it is a change justified by the evolution of written Chinese throughout history.  The origin of most modern Simplified Chinese characters come straight from history itself, since many characters had alternative ways in which they were written (sometimes for convenience), for example these characters below.  Each row contains different forms of a single character (smaller characters indicate what time period these variants are from; ex:  汉碑 means the variant is from a Han dynasty inscription).
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In reality, written Chinese has always been standardizing itself.  Less-used variants become forgotten over time, sometimes only rediscovered through archaeology.  Besides, effective written communication does partly rely on standardization of the written language (imagine everyone writing in the various variants...how horrible would that be?).  Modern Simplified just took this one step farther and made some characters easier to write.
“Traditional Chinese is no longer used in Mainland China”.  Untrue.  Modern Simplified is the commonly used form in Mainland China, but Traditional is still used in a variety of places, such as on store signs/brand logos, particularly for stores/brand that are old.  For example the old Beijing brand 天福号 below (est. 1738).  On their logo, 天福号 is written as 天福號 from right to left, which is the traditional way of writing horizontally.
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Traditional Chinese is also used in the logos for many universities in China:
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Another way in which Traditional Chinese is commonly used in mainland China are personal seal stamps.  Often times when people carve seal stamps for personal use (for example showing ownership on artwork they created or collected), they would put their name/courtesy name/nickname on the seal stamps in Zhuan/篆 calligraphy font, and Zhuan font use Traditional Chinese.  Of course, the ways in which Traditional Chinese is still used in mainland China isn’t restricted to these two examples here.  There are other places where Traditional Chinese is still used, such as traditional paintings/国画, calligraphy/书法, and many many more.
“People who grew up reading Simplified Chinese cannot read Traditional Chinese”.  Depends on who you are asking.  I grew up learning only modern Simplified, and I can read Traditional/modern Traditional Chinese just fine without having to actually learn it from anyone.  Most people who grew up with Simplified Chinese should be able to read at least some Traditional without help.  There are some people who say they can’t read Traditional without taking the time to learn it, but I doubt they’ve really tried, to be very honest.
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And that’s it for the misconceptions!  
My personal philosophy regarding modern Simplified Chinese and modern Traditional Chinese can be summed up as 识繁写简, or basically “know how to read Traditional and know how to write Simplified”.  In a way, knowing how to read Traditional is a bit like knowing how to read cursive:  a lot of history could be lost if we completely stopped using/learning about Traditional Chinese, but to meet the fast pace that modern life demands, I think modern Simplified Chinese is the more convenient choice for writing for day-to-day purposes.  Since quite a few posts on this blog concern history, you will find that I usually use both Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese for historical things, since modern Traditional Chinese is closest to what people used in the past, and modern Simplified Chinese is more often used now.  If it appears that I didn’t put modern Simplified and modern Traditional side by side, that usually means either the characters stayed the same and there’s no need for me to type the same thing out again, or the topic does not call for both to be shown.
Finally, the fun part.  Here’s a Seal/Zhuan script calligraphy work by Mi Fu/米芾 (1051-1107):
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Does something look familiar there?
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TGIF
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Friday is a special night for the Linguistics and Culture Club of Dorman University. Not only was it a prelude to the long-sought weekends, but it was also when the Shadow Urn recovers its charge. What’s the Shadow Urn, you may ask? It is an 8th-century Tang Dynasty Urn lent to them by a local museum. Due to technical and bureaucratic mishaps, the urn was left in their care for an indeterminate period. The Shadow Urn laid dormant for years in the club storage room. That was until the head of the Linguistics and Culture Club, Michael Evans, excavated it from the mountain of forgotten props and artifacts and discovered its power.
Those whose hands are dipped inside the Shadow Urn at 5PM on Fridays are transformed into a mass of shadows. These shadows are constrained in areas where there is light. They can travel at unimaginable speeds in the blink of an eye. However, its main power does not lie with the stated facts. It lies with the power of possession. A shadow can bind to the shadow of another living organism and take control of their bodies.
Of course, being young adults who recently escaped the cusp of hormonal adolescence, the Linguistics and Culture Club used the Shadow Urn to possess the bodies of the jocks in the frat house a couple of blocks away. For every Friday Night, the frat house is alive with parties and booze. Thanks to the Shadow Urn, the once-deemed straight jocks in town turned into a group of homosexuals in a single night. Gerard, the football team captain, was found dancing on a countertop while spinning his dick. Onlookers cheered him with cameras at hand. Gerard returned the favor by bending over as another naker football player inserted his dick in the captain’s ass. 
On the other hand, a group of jocks is licking their brother’s sweaty skin on the other side of the room. The others watched as their numbers increased. Of course, it was just the L&C club possessing more of the jocks and joining in on the fun. Clothes were thrown, and kissing devolved into feasting. Nipples were suckled, muscles were worshiped, cocks were sucked, and asses were railed. Of course, many partygoers thought it was their latest stint, so they could not help but join.
Come morning, everyone was back in their bodies. The frat house was left utterly trashed. All unconscious jocks are strewn on the floor, naked, and their genitals sore from the multiple bouts of cumming. The jocks failed to realize what they had done the night before and assumed they had done the best party there was to lose consciousness all at once. They spent the rest of the week oblivious. Come Friday evening, the Linguistics and Culture Club dusts off the Shadow Urn from the storage and partakes in the pleasure of flesh once again.
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kkeunimopssii · 4 months
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ART HISTORY WORD LIST
I'm slowly reading a book called 청소년을 위한 한국미술사 (Korean Art History for Youth). In the process I came across many interesting terms that may be useful for those who are interested in Korean art and history and maybe would like to read about such topics in Korean in the future. So I decided to share the vocabulary list. Perhaps, to be continued.
선사 [先史] - prehistory
도안 [圖案] - design
암각화 [巖刻畵] - petroglyphs
청동 [靑銅] - bronze
빗살무늬 토기 - comb-pattern pottery
유물 [遺物] - relic, artifact
미의식 [美意識] - aesthetic sense
창의력 [創意力] - creativity
삼국 시대 [三國時代] - Three Kingdoms of Korea
불교 [佛敎] - Buddhism
부처의 현신 [現身] - the Buddha who appeared in the form of a famine in order to save sentient beings
소재 [素材] - material
국교 [國敎] - established religion
강대국 [强大國] - (world) power, powerful nation
학술 [學術] - scholarship
석총 [石塚] - stone grave
석실봉토무덤 [石室封土무덤] - stone-filled tomb
기원전 [紀元前] - B.C. (Before Christ): 기원전 50년 - 50 B.C.
고고학 [考古學] - archaeology
묘제 [墓祭] - a memorial service held before the grave
전기 [前期] - the former part
평면도 - ground plan (architecture)
초상화 [肖像畵] - portrait
고분벽화 [古墳壁畫] - ancient tomb mural
사당 [祠堂] - shrine
신주 [神主] - ancestral tablet
경외감 [敬畏感] - sense of awe
환희 [歡喜] - (great) joy, delight
전달력 [傳達力]- transmission
구체적 [具體的] - detailed
기인하다 [起因하다] - result from
순수 [純粹] - purity
공예품 - handicraft, craftwork
문화재 [文化財] - cultural properties
보관 [保管] - storage
걸작 [傑作] - masterpiece
보고 [寶庫] - repository
청자 [靑瓷] - celadon
극치 [極致] - the height (of)
영토 [領土] - territory, domain
만주 [滿洲] - Manchuria
수나라 [隋나라] - Sui Dynasty
당나라 [唐나라] - Tang Dynasty
명장 [名將] - great commander
저항하다 [抵抗하다] - resist
패망하다 [敗亡하다] - collapse
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bentosandbox · 29 days
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The museum collab outfit?
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so glad you asked now i can finally dump all the info i gathered for a good reason
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during the LNY stream, a few minutes? after they revealed the biker chen skin they dropped this along with my jaw: a collab with the Nanyue King Museum that lasted not even 2 weeks lol (prob because LNY started from the 10th this year aka everything closes)
tl;dr historical museum/mausoleum in guangzhou (the closest china has to HK) with a lot of artifacts, and the collab highlights a few
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the original PV for it if you want to hear some guy say how the tiger hook perfectly covers up the broken part of the jade dragon ornament and it looks like theyre fighting like a certain two and that they complement each other
i typed out a transcript so i could tl it and the lin commentary in..due time also here's a vlog from bili to live vicariously through
what lin commentary you ask. incidentally i also saw people asking 'why is Lin even in this the PV just kept mentioning tigers and dragons' well ok remember how her profile mentions she's a Yanese art history nerd enthusiast... there are qr codes on-site you can scan that will being you to a microsite? and they got her CN VA to narrate the descriptions!!! with comments!!!!!! here's a quick TL i did the other day as an example
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so yea... she's basically the tour guide 🥹🥹🥹
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chenswire and linchen photospots, why did they put swire all by her lonesome at the mausoleum
so. they had a small merch lineup for those who couldnt make it (half/ 3/4 body acrylic stands like the mooncake collab) but there is also a notebook....
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WITH CONCEPT ART? OF THE OUTFITS INSIDE... they mention it in the video but they incorporated the artifacts into the design which is so so cool (their outfit silhouettes? are also based on tang-dynasty clothes iirc) BUT ALSO SEE... CHEN WITH PANTS.... i think she could lose one of the twintails but that's not important here so yeah cool historical-fantasy outfit with baggy pants vs cop outfit with funny tied up shirt and skin tight pants... no contest
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mypulse · 6 days
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A collection of mini fun facts : I'll explain them base on the sequence of the geography (MAP)
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The CAPITALs : (orange circles)
Last time I talked about how palace in the anime take reference of Forbidden Palace,  🏛️ which is located in ☆Beijing, the capital city of Ming and Qing Dynasty.
However Xi'an🏛️ (aka ★ChangAn) is the capital city of TANG Dynasty,
which is the clothing style of the characters. (ChangAn is the ancient name of Xi'an)
FASHION :
During TANG, ★ChangAn, was a cosmopolitan and multicultural city since it is the starting destination of 🐫 Silk Road.
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Ah Dou is wearing a riding suit, know as Hufu 👕. It was a fashion among the noble ladies to wear Hufu for horse ride🐴 . Hufu is male clothing of the *Western region (part of 🐫 Silk Road). [ *West is Central Asia, not Europe]
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LOULAN : (red on map)
Maomao was curious of 💐Concubine Loulan who has Northen facial feature while wearing Southern outfit. In history, LouLan was the name of an ancient 👑kingdom at *Western region. It's location is modern Xinjiang near the now dried salt lake Lop Nur (MAP). The carved wooden beam above is an artifact of Loulan Kingdom.👑
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NAIL POLISH :
Just as the anime, Balsam is a major ingredient for 💅nail polish (also for blush and lip color).
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Balsam flowers are usually found in Central, East and South of Asia. When my grandma was a girl, she grounded the flower patels and apply them on nails then wait for a while , letting the juice to stain the nails before getting rid of the residue.
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In ancient time, 💅 nail polish are made of juice of the grounded petals of balsam mixing with potassium alum. This chemical is used in drugs and silk painting / writing. 📚
WRITING :
Silk is more often used for painting than writing since it is expensive. Potassium alum is applied on silk as preparation for painting and writing.
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Other than silk, bamboo and wooden slips were being used for writing, before paper is commonly used.
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OX BEZOARS :
🐃 Ox bezoars (the drugs that turns Maomao into "upper moon demon" ) is used for de-toxing. 牛黃 is Chinese and kanji character of ox bezoars. Nowadays, it's made into tablet form know as 牛黃「解毒」片. In this context 「解毒」is meaning de-toxing. But some people mistaken 「解毒」means de - posion and think 牛黃「解毒」片 (Ox bezoars) can get rid of poison intaken by individuals, since Maomao mentioned to JinShin to use poison if she is ever facing death penalty.
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ziseviolet · 1 year
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Space buns are very popular right now but they look like Odango hairstyle, but I heard that 牛角头 actually originated from China?? Are hairstyles an important part in the Hanfu movement.
Hi, thanks for the question, and sorry for taking ages to reply!
The double bun hairstyle you’re referring to has a long history in China, where it goes by several different names (depending on the specific style). It is most commonly know as Shuang Ya Ji/双丫髻 (lit. “double maiden bun”), so-called because it was mainly worn by girls & unmarried women. It was also worn by young boys, maids, and dancers. It is a hairstyle associated with youth. Niu Jiao Tou/牛角头 (lit. “ox horn head”) is a type of double bun hairstyle, but its shape is more angular and pointed. You can read more on the history and different types of double bun hairstyles here and here.
Below - Tang dynasty artifact depicting a maiden with a double bun hairstyle. Note the cute flower ornament on each bun! (x):
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The hairstyle is still commonly worn today, mainly by young girls for festive occasions. Below - young girls in hanfu with double bun hairstyles:
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As for your second question - yes, hairstyles are definitely an important part of the hanfu revival movement! After all, you can’t revive hanfu without also reviving the hairstyles to wear with it. The hanfu movement isn’t only about reviving clothing - it also involves reviving hairstyles, makeup, accessories, art, customs, etiquette, etc. And out of all of these, I’d say hairstyles get the second most amount of attention after clothing.
Hope this helps!
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chinesehanfu · 5 months
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[Hanfu · 漢服]Chinese Tang Dynasty (618–907AD) Traditional Clothing Hanfu Based On Tang Dynasty Dunhuang Mural
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【Historical Reference Artifacts】:
▶ China Tang Dynasty Mural:<A female donor on the east wall of Cave 9 in the Mogao Grottoes, Dunhuang,Late Tang Period> 敦煌莫高窟晚唐9窟东壁女供养人
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📸Makeup photography:元奕泽
👩Model :扒皮
💄Makeup and styling:@化妆造型艺术家杨树云
💄Makeup Assistant:蔷薇 任凤
Teaching coordinator:葛南君
🔗Weibo:https://weibo.com/2660877923/Nq98uowv5
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artifacts-archive · 1 month
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Lobed Mirror with Birds, Insects, and Floral Sprays
China, Tang dynasty (A.D. 618–907), 8th century
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blueiskewl · 10 months
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A bronze 'sea beasts and grapes' mirror Tang dynasty
D. 15.5 cm.
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niteshade925 · 11 months
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"Can't even dig a subway in Xi'an. If you dig too shallow you find artifacts from Tang dynasty. If you dig too deep you find artifacts from Han dynasty."
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audreydoeskaren · 2 years
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hiii there!!! i've been focused on eastern fashion for some time now and so far i haven't come across good sources for studying anything from china, let alone east asia. so this probably has been asked before but what advice do you have for new people trying to study chinese fashion?
I do have a couple personal tips! This spiralled off into a very long post which also addresses some historiographical issues, read til the end if interested.
Primary sources
Good books and articles about Chinese fashion history are few and far in between, and may not cover every time period, so primary sources are your best friends. Try to find as many artworks and texts related to fashion as possible for the time period you’re interested in, and don’t feel limited to “famous” artworks or conventional genres. “Famous” historical Chinese paintings rarely depicted realistic fashion, if they depicted people at all. Fashion should be sought in formal portraits, book illustrations, photographs, export art, figurines and burial artifacts etc.. The availability of each genre depends on the time period, the further back in time you go the more scant sources become, which is why I would recommend newcomers begin with a more recent time period, like the 19th and 20th centuries. For fashion history purposes, all visual resources are valuable as long as they depict realistic fashion, and artworks from historically less prestigious genres can be very helpful for cross referencing.
Ideally, one should have a variety of sources across genres. For example, Republican era fashion is usually studied through calendar paintings (月份牌), but these only depicted upper class women in a very specific commercialized, socially conservative context. Therefore, it would be helpful to also look at professional fashion illustrations, photographs of film stars and costumes in films for avant garde designs, as well as photographs of common women for more everyday attire. For the 19th and 20th centuries, it’s good to have artworks as well as photographs/videos, to understand both the fashion ideal and how it transferred onto real bodies.
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Avant garde evening fashion on actress Hu Die, early 1930s.
Most of these things could be found online, through both reliable and dodgy methods. Since I don’t live in China, I can’t visit any museums that physically hold the artifacts, so I just pray that they have things digitized. Fashion historians and enthusiasts on Weibo and Xiaohongshu also post sources they have pretty often, so do check out those platforms. I’m afraid I can’t regularly see what people there have to say because Chinese social media platforms stress me out and give me anxiety as a Chinese person.
It is also important to be able to parcel out what primary sources are reliable for fashion history purposes, whether they depict real life fashion or something fantastical. This is most relevant for Chinese fashion prior to the 19th century, as the abundance of artworks in the 仕女 shinv genre often led people to mistake the imaginary costumes they depicted for real life fashion, because they adhered to stereotypes of “ancient” Chinese clothing cultivated in the 20th century. Shinv as a genre that specifically portrayed women gradually stopped depicting actual women’s fashion in the Late Middle Ages, and developed an “industry standard” style of fantastical costuming based on a fossilized version of Tang and Song styles (not actual Tang and Song fashion). I don’t know why this is but I know it is. Shinv artworks should NEVER be used as fashion history resources, those created after the Song Dynasty should be viewed with suspicion. Faulty understandings of pre-Qing fashion in older literature mostly stem from the inability to distinguish shinv artworks from realistic ones. With some experience of looking at these paintings, it becomes very easy to tell them apart from formal portraits and illustrations that depict real fashion. Here are some established features of shinv costuming:
The top is always tucked inside the skirt, which is contrary to real life fashion in the Yuan, Ming, Qing and 20th century.
The hairstyles are very tall and complicated, often gravity-defying
There are long, dangling decorative tassels and braids hanging from the waistband, as well as other accessories that contribute to flowiness, such as 披帛 pibo shawls
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Shinv piece by Xu Beihong (1895-1953). The style of costuming is consistent with shinv artworks from previous centuries; obviously real life women did not dress like this in the early 20th century.
Use recent literature
This is a general academia thing not just fashion history, but for some reason people tend to make an exception when it comes to Chinese fashion history. DO NOT RELY ON BOOKS THAT ARE TOO OLD, especially if they’re written before the 2000s. There were a series of books on Chinese historical fashion from the 70s and 80s that were highly influential foundational works for the subject, but with the body of research that has surfaced after their publication, a significant chunk of the information in them became outdated and is now considered incorrect. New books and articles are constantly being written about Chinese fashion history, so please consult those instead of the same incorrect books from the last century. I cringe even looking at some of my older posts which were written like, a year ago, how can you expect something from decades ago to be any good.
Class difference
Most English language literature on historical Chinese fashion until very recently only ever focus on court dress, but it should be noted that most if not all historical Chinese courts had highly codified systems of dress that dictated what a person of a certain rank and standing could wear in what situation, at what time of day or year. Many types of court dress could not really be considered “fashion”, since they were ceremonial and meant to remain identical throughout the duration of a dynasty, serving purposes more symbolic and political than fashionable. Civilian fashion was much more lively and consistent in terms of rate of change. From my personal experience, both Ming and Qing are hit pretty hard by this misunderstanding, since a lot of civilian women’s fashion during the Ming is overlooked and neglected in favor of court dress with a lot of bling, and 18th century civilian Han women’s fashion is so underrepresented it’s practically invisible. Fashion had a large presence in the metropolis outside of court, especially as we draw closer to the 20th century.
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18th century jifu, a kind of court dress. Apart from the overrepresentation of court dress, Qing Dynasty garments are ALWAYS displayed in this manner (laid flat instead of draped on a mannequin, because that would be too humanizing) in photographs from books and articles for maximum orientalism (no concrete evidence, just how I see it). Not that there’s anything wrong with displaying garments like this, it’s probably the best way to store them, but the severe lack of visual representations of how 2D clothes look on 3D people is frustrating.
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18th century civilian fashion in a painting.
Continuity and difference
Oftentimes Chinese historical fashion is treated as sporadic episodes, people dressing themselves in one style and then suddenly changing to another one overnight when a new dynasty/decade is established. This mindset probably won’t take you very far in fashion history, because historical Chinese fashion was more like a continuous stream of development where small changes happened one after another, adding up to a major change every now and then. Seeing history as clean cut episodes marginalizes transitional periods where either important changes happened or things were simply very interesting and worthwhile to study.
When put into a postcolonial context, however, the use of clean cut time periods suddenly appears somewhat helpful. Like I explained, there are problems with the episodic view of history, but you have to admit it’s useful for representation. When people think of Western historical fashion, most can name certain periods or styles like 18th century robes a la francaise, high waisted Regency gowns, Victorian crinolines and bustles etc., which one probably learns from period dramas and the like. Whether the impressions are accurate is beside the point, as firstly there is an awareness that there were distinct periods and styles. The same cannot be said for the general perception of historical Chinese fashion, or any other non white society’s historical fashion, even though it is entirely plausible and even easy to divide Chinese historical fashion into similar distinct periods with their unique characteristics. People just think of historical Chinese fashion as “Chinese”, as if that alone is an accurate or sufficient description. As of currently, the only periods and styles represented in this way are, I think, Tang Dynasty chest-high ruqun, Qing Dynasty Manchu court dress and maybe Republican era cheongsam, which are common subjects of representation (with miserable accuracy) in period dramas. I personally would suggest people first getting into Chinese fashion history to come up with some of these time period distinctions but not take them too seriously, as they’re good for understanding the general gist of a time period and invite further research.
Narratives 
Now I would like to delve into more abstract and ideological territory.
Maybe the smart people reading this can tell me if this is postmodern or something, but I think it’s important to keep in mind that lived experiences of fashion in history often run contrary to grand narratives about fashion and society that attempt to sanction what they should look like and police the acceptable ways in which they are interpreted. There are especially many grand narratives and discourses around 19th and 20th century Chinese fashion, such as the classic colonial line about late Qing fashion being backwards and stagnant and needing Western intervention I berate every so often, the pseudo feminist line about Republican era women’s fashion being inherently liberating (I’m going to talk about this in more depth in another post I’m working on), and the Cold War era anti-communist misconception about Mao era PRC not having fashion etc.. Not to mention how many of these narratives were built upon ignorance of actual historical fashion, as fashion history did not become an established discipline until the 1970s and writers speculating before that usually misinterpreted facts or straight up fabricated them (I have a couple examples of this I’m thinking of posting later). These always make me so uncomfortable I feel like I couldn’t breathe, like they’re trying to force me to feel a particular way and put my brain into a very small and tight box.
This is because the 19th and 20th centuries were centuries of grand narratives, shaped by various phenomena and ideologies of the modern era like colonialism, nationalism, fascism and communism. These are essentialist narratives constructed by historians that often serve present and future socio-political purposes, and should be handled with suspicion. These narratives are so influential that they often lead people to carry out intricate mental gymnastics to deny reality; no number of genuine photographs, films and artworks can convince someone sold on grand narratives that many people did indeed wear nice clothes in Mao’s China, seriously I’ve tried and failed so many times. If a narrative is constantly proven wrong by pieces of evidence, maybe it’s time to ditch it.
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Costumes in 1950s mainland film.
Grand narratives existed before the 19th century too, I’m just not very well versed with them and can’t comment much, though I assume the general gist is the same. A well known example off the top of my head is the dynastic cycle theory in imperial era historiography, which describes Chinese history as cycles that repeat themselves with each dynasty. This view is allowed to fester in fashion history as well, with historians often describing fashion at the beginning of a dynasty as “simple” and “conservative”, which gradually develops into more extravagant and spectacular forms as the dynasty’s political power declines. An obvious problem with this view is its equating luxury and consumption with moral degeneracy and decline, which was historically used by Chinese ruling classes as a tool to enforce Confucian ideology. The other problem is that it completely fails to explain fashion at a more detailed level when it comes to actual, tangible features like fabrics, decorative motifs, silhouettes etc., and disregards linear, continuous changes that took place across dynasties. For example, late Ming women’s fashion showed more continuity with the early Qing than earlier parts of the same dynasty, and it’s more helpful to see the Ming and Qing as a continuum in terms of textile production technology and aesthetic tastes rather than two distinct cycles. (Come to think of it, I’m not sure whether dynastic cycle theory was actually used by Chinese historians before Western colonialism, or it was assumed that it was used by historians of the 20th century. That makes quite a difference.)
This is just one example, these grand narratives are everywhere and way too rampant in Chinese history discourse (not just fashion) to simply avoid or ignore. It would be more effective to have some knowledge in historiography (the study of the study of history) and theory so you can actively unravel and deconstruct them to ensure a smooth and pleasant journey on the highway of fashion history. Out of the books I’ve read so far, the ones that helped me the most are probably Edward Said’s Orientalism (I would be nowhere without him!), Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble and Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks. These are very basic and accessible books so they’re useful outside fashion history as well. 
To save you the trouble of feeling unnecessary ways like gasping in disbelief at the sight of beautiful dresses from the 1950s mainland, I suggest not to take grand narratives seriously, as they cause too many practical problems when you want to look at things a little deeper beyond surface level. I’m not asking for objectivity as it’s probably impossible, I’m not objective at all, I’m asking for an awareness of narratives and power dynamics. It’s better to first familiarize yourself with the factual part of fashion history i.e. what silhouettes and hairstyles were popular in what year/decade, before constructing narratives, or not construct narratives at all.
High expectations
Because of the prevalence of Eurocentrism and the massive volume of literature and media already produced about historical Western fashion, as well as the relatively recent academic interest in the historical fashion of non white societies, it can give people just starting out in Chinese fashion history the wrong idea that it’s going to be a breeze compared to the highly professional and demanding field that is Western fashion history. Please don’t get into Chinese fashion history expecting it to be easy. I’ve made this mistake in the past and paid a hefty price for it (significant loss of brain cells and hair trying to figure out stuff in an extremely niche subject and time period). Most people are probably aware that China had a fashion history, but most also aren’t aware of how complex and rich it actually is. You can really afford to be as specific and pedantic as you like, narrowing down changes in styles to those within a decade or between every 2 or 3 years as is customary for the 20th century. I’m not gatekeeping or trying to scare people off, if anything it’s good that Chinese fashion history is so complex because there’s always something new to learn. It’s just that I constantly get this vibe from some people in my askbox that they think Chinese society is so primitive and simple that I can answer some of their super generalized questions in one sentence or something. That’s really counterproductive.
TL;DR use primary sources, read recent literature, be wary of grand narratives, keep an open mind, apply the same theories and criticisms from other academic disciplines, and you should do just fine. And have fun exploring Chinese historical fashion!!
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