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Fan-tastic(附图)
http://www.sina.com.cn 2003/05/21 09:52  上海英文星报

  LIKE the brush pen or chopsticks, the fan is also a symbol of China and one that has played an important cultural role since ancient times.

  The fan is much more than just a means to keep cool - it is also a decorative accessory which can reveal the status, taste, and elegance of its owner.

  And the fan is also an icon of romance.

  Just take one example and you can see how romantic an object a fan is in Chinese culture.

  In the well-known opera, "Peach Bossom Fan", a man gives his lady a folding fan as a keepsake to remind her of their love. His lover, named Li Xiangjun, is a prostitute who commits suicide insgroupsto refuse the advances of another man. Drops of her blood spill onto the fan and an artist creates a painting of peach blossom on the fan in her red blood.

  Historically, China is well known as the kingdom of fan-making. Apart from paper, fans are also made of bamboo, wood, ivory, hawksbill, jade, feathers as well as palm leaf, areca leaf, wheat-straw and cat-tail leaf.

  Using any of these materials, fans are made by a variety of crafts. They can have beautiful shapes and are further refined with hundreds of art crafts after being carved, ironed, drilled or printed by famous craftsmen or artists.

  Decorative tool

  Chinese fan history dates back to ancient times when feathers and leaves were utilized to provide shields from sunshine or were woven as tools for cooling.

  There were two types of fans, one flat and the other folded.

  The birth of the flat fan was much earlier than that of the folded variety and goes back at least 3,000 years. Its shape, like a full moon, signifies the auspicious meaning of union and happiness.

  Such fans were very popular in the Han Dynasty (202BC-AD204). The best ones had a surface covered by white silk from East China's Shandong Province and handles made from bamboo of Central China's Hunan Province.

  The folding fan was also known as a "Head-gathering fan" because its two ends meet together when folded. The fan was first manufactured in the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and became popular in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

  While most labourers used big round fans made from grass in the summer to help keep them cool, in the society of aristocrats and scholars, fans were used throughout the year because to them, fans were more a decoration than a tool.

  The folding fan almost became a symbol of scholars. They would wave their fans to show off their grace when composing or thinking about poetry. When not in use, the fans were concealed inside sleeves or hung from the waist.

  Fans also contained paintings or poems or calligraphy on both sides and fans with a famous artist's painting or calligraphy would be highly prized.

  The famous calligrapher Wang Xizhi of the Jin Dynasty (265-420) once met an old woman selling folding fans in the street. He wrote five characters on each fan which made the woman angry because she thought all the fans had been ruined. But when people found out the words on the otherwise ordinary fans had been written by Wang, they all sold like hot cakes and at high prices.

  Individual taste

  In Chinese history, many fan masterpieces were made from bamboo and feathers. There were also "Fading trees fans", "Autumn forest fans" and "Chrysanthemum fans", all with paintings by famous artists of ancient times. These folding fans were sought by scholars to add to their elegant collections.

  For aristocratic young women, fans made from silk or other precious cloth, especially flat round ones, were a kind of prop to show off their grace and beauty. Whenever they met a strange man they would use the fans to hide their faces. So women's fans also have another name: "Zhang mian" which means "Hiding face".

  Young girls also used fans as a way to catch insects as well as for cooling. In the famous book, "Dream of Red Mansions", the young lady, Xue Baochai who was born into a rich family, used her fan to catch a butterfly.

  Du Mu, the famous poet of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), also wrote in one of his best-known poems a description of young girls using small fans to beat flying fireflies to express their happiness.

  On stage, in traditional opera, the fan was used to express the mood of a particular role.

  The actor playing the role of Zhuge Liang, a smart man in the "Story of the Three Kingdoms", waves a feather fan slowly to show confidence. The actress playing the role of Yang Yuhuan, the famous beauty and imperial concubine of the Tang Dynasty, uses a golden folding fan with a painting of a peony to show her high status and her charm. The young maid uses a small flat fan to show she is smart and lovely and willing to help her young mistress date a man secretly.

  But with the invention of the air-conditioner and the electric fan, the ancient Chinese fan has almost disappeared from daily life. And gone with it are aspects of a former graceful lifestyle.




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