Interpreting Ancient Chinese Fashion (Day 3)

Today, we visited the Chen family, and it was really interesting to see how they lived. We took a tour of their house. And this house had a ground floor, which stored pigs, water buffaloes. Their second floor was their greeting path, as well as their kitchen and their dining area. And the top floor was their sleeping quarters. There were probably about eight people that were living upstairs. It was a really close quarter, so there were four generations in the same household. The grandfather, the father, and the son, and also their little daughter. I had a wonderful time with the grandfather and the father and son. They showed me their outfits. The son had on the day wear, which was like a shorter jacket with a mandarin collar. I also was able to see the father and the grandfather wearing long jackets. And I asked him, well, when do you wear this outfit? And they mentioned that it's more for festivities, it's more for celebration. The grandfather was wearing a beautiful turban, and I was so fascinated that I had to ask him, how did you do this? This was so inspiring to me. So he unwound it for me. It was just a long strip of indigo fabric, about five inches in width, and it was wrapped and twisted around his head. And it was layered about five times, so it gave a really wonderful chicness to it. It was so ancient, but so modern at the same time. After we talked with the chens today, with the four generations, we sat down and had lunch with them. We got to see them make lunch on this huge wok, this is bigger than any wok I'd ever seen in my entire life. And they seemed to cook everything in it. Really wonderful dishes, there was some potato dishes, there was a really wonderful fresh fish soup. There was about five adorable little pudgy fish, and we had those for our lunch. This was probably the most memorable luncheon that I've ever had. It was just a wonderful, wonderful celebration. This afternoon we sat down with the women of the chen household, and we got to watch them fix their hair in the traditional Miao style. It was really interesting to see the way they lengthened their hair with wool. She told me that in the past they used to use human hair, but it's probably a shortage of hair. They have to now use wool. But it was quite wonderful and soft, so she would attach this on, almost like extensions. And actually that's what's happening in America now, they're doing extensions. But this has been happening for quite a long time before that. And then wound it around their head into sort of a variation on a chignon, a French knot. I invented a name for it, and I hope she's happy with this, but I'm calling it the French Miao twist. Yes! It's here! And it was also really interesting to see the intergenerational differences. One of my favorite things is when the women get older, so they maintain the same hairstyle, but instead of wearing a flower as the younger girls do, they sort of cover it up with a commercially bought towel. It's funny because I was not so interested in the hairstyles, but I really liked the effect of the towel over the head. It was like a very pop feeling, especially with the bright colors. Today we got yet another close up look at the traditional Miao costume. We got to look at the multi-paneled skirt that's heavily embroidered. We looked at the traditional jackets. Generally they create these embroidered pieces to be used on the arm, right on a section like this. And the suite consists of two armbands, and if you turn around, there's always a coordinating collar piece used back here. Looks like they'll add some ribbons and some more embroidery to hold this panel into place. And the jewelry. These very ornate crowns that they use, that had one time been made out of silver and now are made out of a very inexpensive punch tin. She was wearing her beautiful two-piece skirt, and I wanted to ask them about, well why is there a two-piece skirt? What's the whole reason for the cut? And they mentioned that it was very important for movement, but also for their dance and their ceremonies. I did understand this because in dance we need to be able to move and also feel for the fabric and the flow. One thing that was very interesting to see was Mrs. Chen brought out an antique jacket that had been made four generations previously, so I'm guessing about 100 years old. The embroidery on it was superb. It was actually some of the finest embroidery I had seen. Again, it was just really incredible knowing that that was made here in such a really rugged environment that still they found time to make these beautiful objects that was such a priority in their lives. So it was really interesting to see the contrast between the old and new and the changes that are happening as the community collides with changing China and modern times. After that, we took a look at a loom that she had brought out. It was like some sort of tatting or shuttle loom. It was like a little stool with a ladder fastened to it and it had these little shuttles that were really ingeniously designed. They held spools of thread and Mrs. Chen showed us how to work it. There was this really elegant hand motion that she did and I was sort of imagining her hand movements as a ballet. One thing we've also experienced since we've been here is the commodification of the village, so entertaining tourists. It's really interesting. It's a double-edged sword for the people in one way. It gives them the resources to preserve their culture and a reason to continue doing their handcraft and handwork. But after looking at the really fine examples of the inherited jacket that Mrs. Chen showed us, it's also very discernible how their craft has suffered with the arrival of commercially made fabrics and textiles as well as, you know, with the little loom, we saw how to make beautiful braids and ribbons, but now they prefer to use store-bought ribbons. And with as much work as they do during the day, I mean, I can't say that I blame them. So it was really overall a pretty outstanding day.