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Chinese Dress. Valery Garrett
Читать онлайн.Название Chinese Dress
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isbn 9781462906949
Автор произведения Valery Garrett
Издательство Ingram
Funeral Attire for Men and Women
Chapter Five REPUBLICAN DRESS 1912–1949
The New Republic
Formal Dress for Men
The Sun Yatsen Suit
Women’s Dress 1912–1925
The Rise of Department Stores
The Cheongsam
Western Dress and Wedding Attire
Chapter Six CLOTHING OF THE LOWER CLASSES
Life of the Common People
Working Clothes
Farming Communities
Fishing Folk
Wedding Clothes and Customs
Funeral Attire
Chapter Seven CLOTHING FOR CHILDREN
Life in the Qing Dynasty
Birth to One Year
First Birthday Celebrations
Young Children’s Clothing
Older Boys’ Clothing
Older Girls’ Clothing
Dress in the Twentieth Century
Baby Carriers
Charms
Dress for Special Occasions
Chapter Eight DRESS IN NEW CHINA 1950–2006
The First Fifteen Years
Clothing Styles
The Mao Suit
The Cultural Revolution 1966–1976
Slogans on Clothing
The People’s Liberation Army
China Opens Its Doors
West Meets East Meets West
Chapter One
THE DRESS OF THE QING MANCHU RULERS 1644–1911
The Imperial Court
For almost 300 years, the Chinese emperors of the Ming dynasty (CE 1368–1644), cloistered inside the Forbidden City in Beijing, enjoyed a leisurely and scholarly lifestyle. After the overthrow of the Mongol-ruled Yuan dynasty, the court re-established the culture and traditions of their ancient and great civilization. Art and literature flourished, reaching a height seldom attained before or since.
But in 1644 all this would change. Despite the presence of the Great Wall, constructed in the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE) to protect the fertile regions of central China from barbaric nomads who lived outside the wall’s perimeters, invasion from the north was a constant fear during the Ming era. The greatest threat was from the Manchu, a group of settled tribesmen of Tungusic descent, as well as some Eastern Mongolian herdsmen from the region now called Manchuria. The Manchu raised reindeer, hunted, and traded sable furs and ginseng with the Ming army along the Liaodong peninsula. As a means of control, the Ming bribed the Manchu with dragon robes and silks as well as titles and favors (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1 Portrait of Wang Ao (1450–1524), a high-ranking Ming official, wearing a presentation robe with four-clawed dragons on the chest, back, down the sleeves, and around the skirt.
The supreme chieftain of all the Tungusic tribes in Manchuria was Nurhachi, who came from the Aisin Gioro clan. The first Manchurian chieftain of his time strong enough to be a great military leader, he was able to forge a new nation from people of differing origins and capabilities. By 1601 Nurhachi had organized the tribes into companies of 300 soldiers, with five companies forming a battalion, and had established a military organization known as the Eight Banners. The tribes moved around in battalions while hunting, and the system served both as a defense and a means of organizing taxes and land distribution for the whole Manchu population. On Nurhachi’s death in 1626, his successor Abahai formally adopted the name Manchu for the collective tribes, and recruited Chinese border troops for the Manchu army.
By 1644 a Chinese rebel army had captured Beijing, an event that resulted in the Chongzhen Emperor (r. 1628–43) committing suicide in the palace gardens on Coal Hill behind the Forbidden City in Beijing. Ming border troops stationed on the Great Wall rushed back to defend the city. Abahai’s younger brother Dorgon, who was appointed leader after Abahai’s death in 1643, bribed the defending general Wu Sangui with a princely title and the promise of punishment for the rebels. General Wu allowed the Manchu through the Great Wall, and Dorgon and his army entered Beijing in June l644, appointing his nephew, Abahai’s seven-year-old son, as the first Manchu emperor, Shunzhi.
The Manchu renamed their new empire Qing, meaning “pure.” Their intention was to remove the threat of invasion by taking control of the northern and western borders and to improve the quality of life by injecting better standards into an inefficient and corrupt government. During this dynasty, which would last for the next 267 years, China reached its greatest size with the inclusion of Tibet, Inner and Outer Mongolia, and Taiwan.
Once settled in the capital, the Manchu rulers divided Beijing into two cities (Fig. 3). The Chinese population was moved to the southern part or Chinese City, separated by a dividing wall, which then became the commercial hub of the capital. The larger northern section, known as the Tartar City, became the quarters of the banner troops, the princes’ palaces, government buildings, foreign legations, temples and libraries. In the middle of the Tartar City was the walled Imperial City, with its great lakes, and at the heart of this was the Forbidden City (the “Great Within”), home to the Qing emperors.
Fig. 2 Imperial throne in the Palace of Heavenly Purity (Qianqinggong), one of the main palaces used by the emperors during the Qing dynasty, ca. 1910.
Fig. 3 Map of Beijing showing the Tartar City and the Forbidden City in the center, and the Chinese City to the south of it, 1917.
The Forbidden City had been built during the Ming dynasty and was completed by 1420. Measuring some 3000 feet (900 meters) from north to south, and over 2300 feet (700 meters) from east to west, the high