The woman restoring ancient Chinese makeup

From Global Times:

By examining references in ancient books, Wang Yifan, a 29-year-old woman from Northeast China's Liaoning Province, has recovered 39 types of cosmetics and makeup tools from China's different dynasties including a powder used by Wu Zetian, China's only female emperor, during the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and bath beans, a type of facial cleanser used by the Empress Dowager Cixi in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Currently, Wang's recovered cosmetics cannot be sold, they are just for display as they still need further refinement.

read more here @ Global Times

Ingenious Girl Makes Idiom Dictionary Illustrated with Paper-cuttings

From All China Women's Federation:

A 17-year-old girl who was diagnosed with nephrotic syndrome at the age of 9 has devoted great efforts to making an unusual idiom dictionary illustrated with paper-cuttings since her summer vacation.  The ingenious girl Liu Yu comes from Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province.

"Currently, people have attached great importance to traditional culture. I think idioms are an aspect of our culture and it is more interesting to use paper-cuttings to explain idioms. Meanwhile, the art form can be passed down," Liu said.

In the process of making the dictionary, she chose some idioms that are easy to understand for young children and she also noted the source of the idioms and some examples.

To date, she has made paper-cuttings of 103 idioms and she is expected to complete the dictionary by the end of next year. The young woman hopes that some publishing houses will help her publish it.

read more here @ All China Women's Federation

The Forgotten Language That Only Women Once Knew

Ever had the sneaking suspicion that women speak in different tongues? If you were a Hunanese peasant woman in 20-century China, there was a kernel of truth to the old joke. Inside a hilly, remote village of Jiangyong County, unschooled women and girls developed a mysterious system of writing called Nüshu to express their innermost thoughts and passed around favorite songs, prayers, traditional tales, birthday letters and wedding congratulations to each other in coded script.

The communications were hidden in plain sight from the men, who largely disregarded Nüshu — which means “women’s writing” in Chinese — as frivolous, not bothering to learn a word.

Similar female scripts arose in Japan and Korea too, but only Nüshu bore a certain mystique. When women died, they had their favorite works burned or buried with them. So we don’t know exactly when Nüshu began, but we know that women were using the script around 200 years ago, when girls weren’t expected to go to school and long before they received any formal education. 

read more here @ OZY

Li Zhao - Female Pioneer of Communist China

Li Zhao is best known in China as the wife of the 1980s liberal reformer Hu Yaobang, who held the country's highest office as general secretary of the Communist Party – until being forced out. It was his death in 1989 that famously sparked the Tiananmen Square student protests.

One of the female pioneers of communist China, Li Zhao joined the revolution as a 16-year-old in 1937. After her father was killed at an anti-Japanese occupation rally, she took inspiration from the classical Chinese legend Mulan and disguised herself as a man – even shaving her head – to travel alone the long and dangerous road to Yanan.

She was laid to rest at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery on Friday, in an ancient hall reserved for Communism's heroes with unblemished careers. Hu hadn't been buried here. But on Friday the white floral wreaths included those from Xi and Premier Li Keqiang.

Read more here @ Stuff dot co dot nz

3,000 years of beauty enhancement in China

Chinese women have been attentive to their physical appearance since the ancient times. As is common with trends related to people's personal appearance, they come and go, only to regenerate and take on new forms when the circumstances are right.

Cosmetics have been used by people all around the world to accentuate their physical features for millennia. In China, this practice of face adornment gradually spread from the ruling class to the general population.

According to historical accounts, women in China were complementing their looks with lipstick, nail polish and perfumes as far back as two or three thousand years ago. During the imperial times, upper class women and traditional yiji entertainers, similar to Japan’s geishas, were the main trendsetters.

Read More Here @ GB Times

Women in History - All China Women's Federation

Women in History - All China Women's Federation
Series of articles of women who have made an impact on the history of China throughout the ages.  Link forms part of the Women of China website.

The Four Great Beauties, and the Arts of the Courtesans in Ancient China

The Four Great Beauties, and the Arts of the Courtesans in Ancient China | Ancient Origins

The Four Great Beauties are four ancient Chinese women renowned for their beauty which they skillfully exercised to influence Chinese history. Although each of the Four Great Beauties frequently appear as the subjects or objects of arts, one seldom learns much of them beyond their names, descriptions of their looks and brief mentions of their skills. This is common in ancient Chinese works related to female performers, or courtesans. In their legends, the Four Great Beauties were, in fact, heavily implied as courtesans themselves. Their legends illustrate applications of the early Chinese education utilized and perfected by the ancient courtesans of China, which was then preserved by Confucius as part of his philosophy.

Long Haired Village

From The Nation:

HAIR is very important to women, who generally use it to highlight their features, but for the women of the ethnic Yao people of Huangluo Village, China, hair is their most prized possession.

Located in the Longji Scenic Are of Gulin, China, Huangluo Village numbers around 82 households of Red Yao ethnics, who get their name from the traditional red clothing. Like many other Chinese villages, Hunagluo enjoys very attractive natural surroundings and has plenty of ancient traditions to keep tourists entertained, but the most fascinating thing about it is the women’s obsession with long hair. In fact, the Yao settlement has received a Guinness certification for the “world’s longest hair village” and is also known as the “Long Hair Village” across China. Considering the average hair length of the 120 women in Huangluo is 1,7 meters and the longest locks exceed 2.1 meters, I’d say its reputation is well-deserved.

Hair has always played a big part in the lives of the Red Yao women of Huangluo. Until a few years ago, it was considered so important that no one, apart from the husband and children was allowed to look upon it when let loose.