How can we keep Nushu alive among younger generations among Chinese women?
Nushu is a variety of language invented thousands of years ago by women who were not allowed to be educated in order to communicate with each other.
After interviewing and researching women from different fields and learning about the original Nushu, my project aims to use Nushu, a women only language as a tool to create a women’s space for contemporary Chinese women to communicate with each other and express their emotions.
This is not only physical, but also an invisible network connecting women in various fields. The social network built by women’s groups can enhance our voice in society, amplify small voices, and make more people aware of women’s rights.
The “room” not only symbolizes the need for physical space, but also represents women’s desire for independent thinking, free action and self-expression.
Dai Jinhua, Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Peking University, and Zhou Yijun, a writer and documentary filmmaker, had a wonderful dialogue on “Women Are a Situation”. I was impressed by the discussion of the relationship between mother and daughter. Dai Jinhua said that a specific motivation for his growth was not to be like his mother. That’s why I chose the lifestyle I have now. Growing up, I witnessed the dedication of my mother in her dual social role as society and family. From morning to night, she didn’t have a moment of her own, everything came first to her father and me. She is a wife, a mother, a daughter, but not herself. This phenomenon has continued from my grandmother to my generation, and the readjustment of social labor has not developed a new female template and culture. Zhou Yijun also mentioned that he was an afterthought of feminism, and getting married and having children seemed to follow the path of his parents. All the desires of women are not shaped, are not a process of being edified. Dai Jinhua believes that this is a double standard in society, “I think women should belong to the family, and if you don’t be a wife and mother, you must have a so-called.” And then they are dragged into the rules of success in the male realm to be compared and scrutinized. When we talk about feminism, we are not looking for “privilege” or opposing men, but about finding a way to place ourselves in today’s uncertain world. Dai Jinhua said that feminism told her two things, one is that all this is not your personal fault, but the common problems faced by countless women; The second is to learn to look at the men around you, instead of deifying and looking up to them, and then internalize the myths created by those male powers.
Also as Yonjoo Cho mentioned, more grassroots women organizations and activists are needed to protect women’s rights in both rural and urban areas. The society needs to be educated to look at women leaders in the same way as their men counterparts. It is time for the longstanding social expectation of women to be replaced by a new attitude; that is, valuing women’s efforts in their career pursuits and self-representation in all aspects of life. Then, a real era of women holding up half the sky will come. (Cho, 2017)
This made me think of the importance on women’s supportive networks. In the mainstream of society, women may be limited by many rules, but we can share our resources by forming our own networks, just like Nushu to open up a new path for contemporary women.
Wang, Ning <Challenges of globalization and prospects for an inter-civilizational world order>
This made me think of promoting the ancient female only language Nushu is also a good way to strengthen the position of Chinese culture in the world.
During the intervention on October 26, I changed the handicraft material to wool felt, because it will be more convenient to make the shape of Nushu than the previous material i used.
In this workshop, I briefly asked everyone to introduce themselves and then started the handicraft. Because there is not much background introduction, everyone chose to write their names in Nushu, and in the process of making wool felt, everyone talked about their own lives, and also said that making wool felt makes them very decompressed.
Most of the people who participated in the event were unfamiliar with each other, but they kept each other’s contact information after the event.
Unlike previous interventions, many people chose to take away their finished products after this event, which shows that they were very satisfied with the format and content.
I met an artist who is also working on the nushu genre, Jiayi, who wrote the word “women” on another woman, from one woman’s hand to another’s hand, echoing the connection between the most primitive women in Nüshu, and I also liked her infectious performance, and we were already discussing about the presentation in the final festival.
In the intervention held on October 13th, there were ten participants in total. We gathered in front of Central Saint Martins, and I prepared materials for crafts and some snacks for everyone.
First, I asked everyone to introduce themselves briefly, and then I briefly told the history and story of Nushu. A thousand years ago in China, when women were not allowed to be educated, a woman entered the palace and invented a script that was only passed down among women in order to communicate with her family and to keep it from being known by other people. Then I took out a piece of white paper with the word “woman” written in Nushu, and I invited everyone to write down any feelings they had about the story, including women’s voice, spiritual leadership, strength, brave, independence, intelligence, creativity, etc…
In the second part I invited everyone to share about when they first learned about female empowerment and some examples from their lives. At first we were not familiar with each other, so I shared my own thoughts first, and during this conversation I realized that we were talking about a wider range of topics, and although it sounds a bit off-topic, I think it was the fact that we all felt safe in the women’s group and that’s why we were willing to share more, and I found that everyone was involved in the discussion.
For the last part of the session I invited them to make crafts and they could choose their own names in Nushu or favorite words and phrases. At first I wanted to add some kind of introduction to the session, e.g. what would you like to convey in Nushu? But it was clear from what they chose, for example, some wrote “Choice”, “Women can do anything”, “Joy”, “Destiny is in women”, “Freedom”.
Because I believe that the story and spirit behind Nüshu are still relevant in modern society, and I have always had a strong interest in traditional cultural heritage, I hope that by raising people’s awareness of Nüshu, I can give new life to the ancient women’s script.
Female empowerment:
I believe that women’s empowerment should not just stay in words, but should actually contribute to women’s rights, so I reached out to people in different fields who work on women’s physical and mental health.(AC Realization)
Interventions：
What happen？
From my observation, when they doing the handicrafts, they were all put down their phones.
Why it happened?
Because when people do crafts, they need to be completely focused on it.
（AC Process）
Why handicraft？
Use a visual way instead of verbally to convey it to the audience, because in modern society, most people have the ability to read and write Chinese characters, which is also an easy way for people to engage in.
（AC Communication）
Material choosing:
Twisted sticks is quite popular among young generations of Chinese women. It’s cheap and easy to find, people always use it to make toys or any other handicraft works.
Why choosing this material?
Because I want to combine the ancient language with something new in the new era.
Because in my previous interviews, many people talked about women’s space and the connection between women. So I did an offline intervention in a large shopping mall, I invited women to stitch together the shape of Nüshu with twisting sticks, during which they would communicate together, and they would ask me about the origin of Nüshu, and discuss the story of Nüshu together, I think it is a kind of bridge for people to connect with each other, so that women with different lifestyles can come together because of the same story.
In the process, I found that when they using the twisting stick to copy Nüshu characters, there were many strokes that were difficult for people to copy, such as a point.
I also received feedback, for example, that I could make some of the basic components of Nüshu characters into small puzzles for everyone to spell out the characters.
