Chinese Gown Indian Attire The 'Chinese gown' Lu Xun referred to was of course the qipao (or cheongsam in Cantonese), a style sometimes considered the sort of Chinese national dress to be equated with the Indian sari, the Korean hanbok and the Japanese kimono, but it is not nearly so well established. The qipao is usually thought to be a relatively recent development, an evolution of the long, loose, wide-sleeved Manchu gown, dating from the 1920s, though that in itself does not make it untraditional. But this dating has been disputed by Professor Wang, who would have us know that the Chinese living in the central plains had worn robes and skirts long before they encountered the Manchu conquerors, who came to rule China under the dynastic name of Qing. Wang traced the origin of the qipao to earliest antiquity, presenting his evidence as a series of reconstructions of clothing from sculptured or painted artifacts.

Chinese Gown Indian Attire Concentrating on skirts, he seemed to assume that pants were also worn, and they could sometimes be seen peeping beneath his reconstructed gowns. With the coming of the Manchus, the Chinese resisted the conquerors' attempts to force them to give up the old-style Ming costume; some patriots indeed declared themselves ready to die for it. Eventually the men compromised, wearing Manchu styles in life and Ming styles in the coffin, while women were left more or less to their own devices. Chinese Gown Indian Attire In the end, the Manchu women's tunic evolved into the qipao, which was consecrated as formal dress by the KMT (The Kuomintang, the political party led by Chiang Kaishek) in 1928. It is still relatively accepted in Taiwan, but after Liberation in 1949, the qipao disappeared on the mainland, except perhaps for formal visits to other countries on the part of official wives. Chinese Gown Indian Attire Even then, there were dangers. The wife of Liu Shaoqi, who was toppled during the Cultural Revolution, was criticized for having worn a qipao three years previously on a state visit to Indonesia. My own informants agreed emphatically that it was then taboo.
Chinese Gown Indian Attire But there was a notable exception, namely Song Qingling (the wife of Sun Yatsen, the founder of the Chinese republic) who throughout the Cultural Revolution continued to wear a black qipao and even painted her eyebrows and her lips. Chinese Gown Indian Attire One of my informants (Li Fang) recalled that when, as a child, she saw Song's picture in a magazine, she assumed that this was a bad woman until it was delicately explained to her that in fact this was the widow of the great Sun Yatsen, and that nobody could say anything against her qipao. My informant's mother, however, reported that her family did have one hidden in a closet, and that her own mother had been married in one.

Chinese Gown Indian Attire She recalled that the ban on qipao seemed to date from the 1961 Si Qing ('Four Cleanlinesses') movement. This was an anti-corruption campaign that in some ways pre-figured the Cultural Revolution by diverting popular sentiment away from official corruption to focus on supposed popular corruption.  In any case, the qipao in mainland China then became, as it still is, something associated with the stage and with official and commercial hospitality -- airline hostesses and hotel staff. Even in 'entertainment' it is sometimes viewed as problematic. As Antonia Finnane pointed out, Deng Xiaoying, China's foremost female conductor, having seen a film that contained qipao-clad Hong Kong prostitutes, refused to share a stage with a singer who wore one (Finnane 6). Chinese Gown Indian Attire Other mainland Chinese with whom I spoke confirmed the qipao's indelible association with prostitution. As "national dress," it seems to have been compromised.
What replaced the qipao as a politically and socially approved outfit was, of course, the drab and shapeless blue, green or grey pants and jackets for both sexes, sometimes referred to as the "Mao suit," although it was earlier pioneered by none other than Sun Yatsen himself. The practical purpose behind its promulgation lay both the problems of clothing vast population in a poor country in the most efficient way possible, and in the egalitarian ideology behind Chinese communism. Yet almost immediately some voices were raised in discontent. Chinese Gown Indian Attire As early as 1955, a national conference was held in response to letters from readers expressing dissatisfaction with universal drabness. As in many parts of the world, dress in China is and has always been considered a convenience enabling the observer to rank-order strangers, a process vital to social interaction anywhere. Chinese Gown Indian Attire In China it used to be the practice to integrate the logos or badges of rank into the costume itself. Little has since changed, except that the badges of rank are not quite so blatant. The (unsuccessful) attempt to eliminate this practice, which went so far as to eliminate the insignia of rank on military uniforms, was one of the aims of Chinese dress reform policies under Mao.
 

In the 1990s, China went through yet another stage of the clothing dilemmas with which it had long been afflicted as a facet of attempts at modernization. In 1995, at the Xi'an Academy of Arts, I met a young student designer who was, incidentally, the only woman I ever saw then to wear a hippie-style, full, long, tie-dyed skirt: all others stuck either to pants or to a short-skirted business suit. She gave me a paper she had written and entitled, significantly, "Dressing Doubts." It began: Two decades ago, it was customary to wear and see simple, inexpensive blue or green clothing. Clothes did not distinguish between male and female or old and young. Chinese Gown Indian Attire People did not dare stand in the sunlight of bright, variegated colours. . . . Now it is hard to avoid losing one's sense of direction. Focusing on women's clothing, the paper proceeded: How can public relations women and factory women dress the same? Enterprises are now divided into state-owned and private, Chinese-foreign ventures and wholly-foreign-owned enterprises. The result is that even women who have the same line of work in different enterprises have different sorts of dress requirements to fulfill. Teachers do not need to dress up in expensive clothes and jewelry, but they need to wear modest pieces in jade and gold in order to fit the image of "the engineer of the soul." Now the dressing habits of teachers have become a constant topic of student conversation.

Those who dress unsuitably will lose the respect of their students. Even if teachers are outstanding in scholarship, if they wear plebian clothing or other unsuitable dress, students will have doubts as to their ability to know the past and keep abreast of the present. Chinese Gown Indian Attire Another factor affecting Chinese "dressing doubts," but one not considered by this budding designer, was the otherwise pervasive rural-urban distinction, which in China is of far greater social importance than in the west. Poor communication and poverty has meant that changes are slower to affect the countryside than the cities. In her study of factory workers in southern China, Joyce Lee observed that she found it easy to tell which girls had come very recently from the country. Girls straight from villages wore blue or green polyester pants. After adaptation, which started with the first paycheck, they sported miniskirts or black or blue jeans, very bright colors and running shoes. Her view was that what the adapted factory workers tended to wear were crude imitations of Hong Kong styles, which in turn were crude imitations of western fashions. Chinese Gown Indian Attire Clothing make the man, as the saying goes. Though not everyone agrees with that trite old adage, most people will agree that clothing is one of the fundamental elements of life, particularly if you’re female. The basic reason given for the importance of clothing is protection from the elements, but for many, it is far more than just a way to keep warm. Clothes are a way of showing social status, religious beliefs and artistic aspirations. They are often an easily i dentifiable and fiercely treasured cultural heritage. This is especially true in Asia, where each of the hundreds of ethnic groups have developed traditional attire particularly suited to the culture and environment.

Chinese Gown Indian Attire In recent years, there has been a strong move to reinstate the cheongsam as everyday attire. Fashion designers constantly modify the traditional form (occasionally with outrageous results) and in the Hong Kong movie In the Mood for Love, the endless parade of exquisitely tailored cheongsams stole the show from the attractive stars, prompting a brief revival of the dress. One traditional costume that has circumvented obsolescence and Western influences to become firmly embedded in modern life is the Vietnamese ao dai. Chinese Gown Indian Attire The ao dai got its start in 1744, when Lord Vu Vuong of the Nguyen Dynasty decreed both men and women should wear an ensemble of trousers and a gown-like blouse. It was not until 1930 however that the ao dai as we know it really appeared, when the top was lengthened to reach the floor, the bodice was fitted to the curves and raglan sleeves were incorporated.

Chinese Gown Indian Attire Like the cheongsam, the upheavals of the twentieth century made the ao dai unfashionable for long periods. This was particularly true in the seventies, as austerity drives caused the Vietnamese to shelve the ao dai as an impractical luxury. It was only with the brightening economy of the late eighties and the early nineties that the ao dai made its comeback and today, the dress is a common sight on Vietnamese streets. Chinese Gown Indian Attire It is the standard uniform of schoolgirls. It can be seen on office women going about their daily tasks. Respectable matrons doing their morning grocery shopping often step out in ao dais. Traditionally, the colour of the ao dai indicated age: pure white for girls, soft pastel colours for young, marriageable woman and strong, rich colours for the older ladies. Chinese Gown Indian Attire Of course, with the changing whims of fashion and the availability of lush materials, the ao dais seen on the streets are often altered to be short sleeved, high hemmed or embroidered; practically every modification is tried in the quest to impress, but the basic form remains the same. Chinese Gown Indian Attire Even in the United States, the forces of conformity hasn’t been enough to staunch the ao dai’s popularity — after years of complete assimilation with the local community, the Vietnamese Americans are increasingly showing their pride in the heritage, with many communities staging Ms. Ao Dai pageants to celebrate their traditions.

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