Which national costume is cheongsam?

Category: Life >> Clothing/Jewelry

Ans:

The cheongsam (men's style also known as the robe, coat, and tunic) is the traditional national costume of the Manchu people of China, and one of the official men's costumes of the Qing Dynasty.

[edit] Formation and development of the cheongsam

The cheongsam means "the robe of the flag person". The flag people are the Manchus.

Before the establishment of the Qing dynasty, the dress of the Manchurian people at that time by the neighboring ethnic influences. In particular, the emulation of the gold, Liao, Mongolia and other immediate national clothing customs. The Manchurian people to adapt to the nomadic hunting life, in the later female costume on the basis of the Mongolian robe, long and thin, narrow cuffs and other characteristics.

The cheongsam is known as the "clothes" in Manchu, and is divided into four types: single, folder, leather and cotton. The traditional Manchu robe is characterized by a round neck, right lapel, with buttons rather than belts, narrow sleeves, the end of the sleeve usually pulled up, the need to warm hands and salute under the duster, called "horseshoe sleeves", men's belts, below the front and back of the left and right fork in order to facilitate the riding and shooting. The general appearance than the Han robe tight and narrow. Collar, lapel and cuffs sometimes also set lace. Upper body in the robe outside the waistcoat.

After Manchuria destroyed the Ming Dynasty and established the Qing Dynasty, Chinese people changed to wear Manchurian costumes. Therefore, the Manchu style of dress became the mainstream. The cheongsam thus became the regular dress of the upper-middle class men and the dress of the commoners. There were also changes in the style: the split was reduced to two or even no split (called "one wrap round"), and there was no belt. The unofficial cheongsam began to use straight sleeves instead of horseshoe sleeves. Cotton cheongsams were generally covered with a single long shirt.

Over the course of nearly three hundred years, the ethnic boundaries between Manchu and Han Chinese gradually blurred. By the early Republic of China, due to the collision of Chinese and Western culture. The cheongsam was used as China's national costume, the Republic of China 18 years in April, the national *** officially cheongsam as the "national costume". The reason why the cheongsam was used instead of the previous dresses of the Ming Dynasty is that the cheongsam belonged to the most simplified of all the costumes of the dynasties at that time, and had the advantages of being lightweight, easy to use, labor-saving, material-saving, etc., and the form of the buttons was also easy to wear. These are suitable for the historical trend at that time. Later, the long gown to short jacket popular, the intention is *** will be the cheongsam's narrow cut off, and cut off the braid the same reason. Collar type also appeared before the high back low Yuan Bao collar. Men's cheongsam streamlined the cumbersome decorative modifications, loose waist, wide cuffs, collar front low back high, widen the hem, raise the slit, and finally developed into a long shirt. Its popularity continued until the late 1930s. After that, the use of the tunic as an everyday garment became rare. For example, in the 1950s, when Li Ao was a student at the University of Taiwan, he was called the "robe monster" for wearing a robe.

[edit] Women's cheongsam

In the mid-1920s, the Republic of China, the use of people from all walks of life in the process of improvement. Women's cheongsam robe body gradually shortened, narrower waist, hem smaller, while the slit became lower, the collar became shorter. In the thirties, the rise of the student movement, women accepted the new ideas, began to go to school, so the cheongsam appeared as a lightweight uniform.

Later, the cheongsam was continuously improved, adding elements of Han Chinese dress.

In addition, although Cheongsam in English is the phonetic translation of "long shirt", in practice it only refers to the women's cheongsam.