Traditional Chinese Fan Culture

History

Fans originated in China, but after thousands of years of development and spread, fan culture is not limited to China. Fan culture has also developed in neighboring countries such as Korea, Japan, Malaysia, and India. Even royal ladies in Europe viewed fans as a symbol of status, with Spain and France being particularly prominent in fan culture.

Fans, originally called "翣," were not used for cooling themselves but as ornaments. During the Zhou Dynasty, the carriages of kings and empresses were equipped with "fans" to shield them from the wind and dust, known as "翣 fans." Later, large 翣 fans were used in the ceremonial processions of feudal emperors and high-ranking officials to demonstrate their majesty.

The Chinese fan has a 3,000-year history. Bamboo is abundant in China, and bamboo is considered the finest material for making fans.

Types

Fans include bamboo, wheat, betel nut, palm, silk, feather, wood, jade, ivory, sandalwood, folding, round, silk, silk, palm, cocoon, fire-painted, bamboo, printed paper, and plastic.

Cultural Symbolism

Zhuge Liang favored a goose-feather fan. Wearing a feather fan and a silk scarf, he exuded a refined elegance. A gentle wave of the fan would bring forth a strategy. Since Zhuge Liang's fandom, many strategists and aides have adopted it, too, and the fan has become a symbol of elegance and wisdom.

During the Qing Dynasty, Ji Xiaolan often fanned himself while reciting poetry and composing couplets, seemingly churning out witty verses. Ironically, many scholars, eager to showcase their fan prowess, often used fans regardless of the season, leading to the phenomenon of "wearing winter clothes while fanning summer fans."

In some novels and historical novels, fans can even be used as weapons. They frequently appear in the martial arts novels of Jin Yong and Gu Long. Princess Iron Fan's palm-leaf fan can create tornadoes, rendering even Sun Wukong powerless. It can also extinguish fires. Jigong possesses a broken cattail fan. In Jigong's hands, it becomes a magical instrument capable of repelling enemies from a thousand miles away, endowed with extraordinary powers.

Even ancient ladies and noblewomen favored fans. They favored silk palace fans, silk fans, and gauze fans (collectively known as round fans). These were often crescent-shaped, and preferably had the scent of camphorwood or sandalwood. Yang Guifei, in the Peking Opera "The Drunken Concubine," favored a folding fan, with a silk cover and bamboo frame, adorned with large peonies.

Those who most favored fans were scholars, especially those with a knack for calligraphy, painting, and writing, like Tang Bohu and Zheng Banqiao. They enjoyed expressing their elegance through literary flourishes. They also liked to exchange inscribed fans with the ladies in their boudoirs for silk handkerchiefs and sweatbands as tokens of love. Therefore, fans were more like a kind of flirtation in the hands of scholars and ladies in ancient times.