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.
Q:Can you tell us a little bit about what you’re currently doing?
My undergraduate major is environmental art, and my graduate major is illustration and vision, and then my graduation topic is actually related to feminism, after all, I finished my graduation with a witch theme, and I am now working, doing variety show post-production, and then my job has just left, and I am changing jobs now.
My main direction and interest is feminist research, and I have done similar topics on genderlessness before, and my main research direction is the intimate relationship between women’s themes and these personal thoughts.
Q: Why did you choose this topic?
I think it has something to do with my painting style, my personal creation actually involves less men, I will be more interested in women’s body expression, and then I actually don’t have a particularly deep understanding of feminism before going abroad, and I am not so interested, at that time I may be more interested in psychological topics such as personal mentalism, after studying abroad, there will be a transformation of ideology, just like I used to have such a sensitive feeling about some women’s issues in society. In the past two years, the topic of women has become more and more popular, and women have a unified sense of resistance, and I have gradually understood this, so I have started to do research in this area.
Q: Do you know anything about Nüshu?
I feel that it is quite close to her story, we have understood such a concept before, which is history. This is a description of one of his stories, that is, the subject is a man, there is a lack of a story in history, that is, a story about her, and all the things that are recorded in history are actually conveyed by men.
At the same time, I am also curious about other countries where women are not in the spotlight, such as Japan Korea, their feminism has developed more slowly, of course, Japan are representative figures, but in other countries, has the same form of writing been produced at other times?
Q: What kind of concept does it seem like feminism or feminism to you?
The feminism in my mind is girls help girls, and the other concepts may be too big. Why is there no masculinism in the world, because men don’t need such an ism, and when there is really no concept of feminism, it will be equality in the true sense.
Q：And then what would you like to do with Nüshu if you were an illustrator?
If I express it in my own work, I might actually make it something similar to a tattoo, and use illustration to make something closer to a symbol, or I will pay more attention to its concept, I will want to understand what he wants to convey at the time, and then use his basic concept to make my own illustration picture concept.
The Uterus Touring Exhibition, which travels to several cities in China, is free to enter, and all the proceeds from the sale of goods and artworks will be used to donate sanitary napkins to women in poor areas.
Q: Can you tell us a little bit about what you’re currently doing?
My current main job is to work in Qingdao, and then use my spare time to do the project of uterine tour, at the beginning I made a public account, talking about feminist, and after being noticed by many people, I slowly made the uterine tour, the theme of the uterus tour is to introduce women to the other side of the uterus, because it involves childbirth, it may be endowed with a lot of sacred values, but in fact, women are more likely to face menstruation and gynecological diseases, and the exhibits on display are female artists on joint social platforms, They provide exhibits, and we will use all the proceeds to buy sanitary napkins from our partners for each exhibition, and donate them to girls in poor areas through public welfare foundations, my first donation was during the earthquake in Gansu, and I learned about the lack of feminine hygiene products on social platforms, so I donated 900 packs of sanitary napkins.
Q: What kind of concept does it seem like feminism or feminism to you?
Maybe I don’t know how to say what kind of concept feminism is, but I can say why I started doing it, because I lived in a small county town in the mountains when I was a child, not a very developed place, and there was no sex education curriculum in the school. At first, it was because my mother took the IUD(intrauterine device), she got endometrial displacement, endometritis, and went to the hospital, and when I was hospitalized, my mother gave me a mobile phone, then my teacher found out I brought a mobile phone to class when I was in elementary school, and then our teacher called me to the office, I said that it was because my mother was hospitalized with gynecological disease, she was afraid that I would not be able to contact her, other classmates heard it, then they said that my mother had a gynecological disease, and they began to laugh at me, which made me very impressed. Until I went to university and started reading a lot of books on women’s themes that I slowly realized that their ideas were wrong. After making a public account, I found that many times I could be seen by everyone, but I couldn’t really help those women, so I had the idea of donating. We hope that everyone can get rid of menstrual stigma and continue to develop into a menstruation-friendly society, so that everyone can get rid of menstrual poverty.
Q: Do you have any memorable experiences in the process of holding exhibitions or donating?
I was impressed by the first exhibition, because I am not an art student, and I don’t have any experience in holding exhibitions, but in the first exhibition, I really met a lot of women who helped me, including one sister from a publishing house, who would give us a book sharing session, sponsor a lot of our sex education books, and people from other cities who helped me set up the exhibition.
But after I did this exhibition, when I promoted it on social media, I would meet people who were not very polite, for example, some college classmates came to me and asked me, because I mentioned a lot of uterus, gynecological diseases and so on, they would come and joke with me, I think we were talking about sex education, but it was not that I could accept men coming and joking with me for no reason, this is particularly impolite, I was just popularizing sex education, I was just learning some normal knowledge that we should know.
Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.
Q: Can you tell us a little bit about what you’re currently doing?
I’m an illustrator, I used to be an advertising planner, and then I changed careers because of the pandemic and other reasons. The main characters of my paintings are basically women, probably some slice of life, and at present, the main content of my work is mainly commercial cooperation and holding exhibitions.
Q:What is the reason for this exhibition?
First of all, the content of my paintings is more female protagonists, because the curator is also my friend, she has an art space, my audience is also my fan group, most of them are also women, so we decided to make a women’s exhibition, we are all resistant to labeling ourselves as feminist, we don’t want to be a special sacred, what we want to express is actually a more comfortable state of women, Feminism may be that you enjoy the moment, and reconcile with your identity, when you no longer emphasize feminism and no longer emphasize this identity, in fact, you may become more comfortable, when you begin to value yourself in life, when you can put yourself in a more important position, everythings will slowly become more and more comfortable, this is what I think feminism.
Q：When did you first learn about feminism?
On the Internet, you may watch videos, even if you can’t say an accurate time, maybe sometimes when you talk about certain events, or some opinions, you will feel very agreed, may be that is the input of consciousness.
Q:If it were you or personally, what would you like to convey with Nüshu? If it’s possible, or will it be combined with work, or something?
Because I’m an illustrator, I may just pay more attention to the re-creation of images, and it is impossible for people to learn Nüshu now, maybe when it becomes a label for a certain group, or after it is visualized, it may not spread better.
But I’m thinking that Nüshu is actually much easier for women like us who can get a good higher education, or for people who have already obtained a certain amount of women’s rights, but for the place where it originated, or for the part of the women it represents, the weaker group, they may need something different from what we need, and they may want to achieve this goal much lower than us.
I am sometimes very confused, I don’t know what kind of connection the outside propaganda has with these inheritors, that is, for them, it is a little more income, but when these cultures are moved to the world stage, everyone is shocked by it, it seems that it has nothing to do with them, and finally it falls into a very real question, that is, what can you provide for these people by doing these things. Everyone’s starting point is different, that is, what everyone needs, and the feminism and women’s rights that everyone needs are not the same starting point.
When a certain culture is known by more and more people, or when it becomes a symbol, it may only be a symbol that appears on the clothes of some fashion brands, but when it means something, no one may bother to understand it anymore. If it were me, the first step would be to spread the word to the people who could be influenced, to let them know the story and the meaning behind it, and then to support each other among women, that is, what we can do for women and what kind of efforts we can do. Especially in society now, there is this kind of mutual aid like women, including some women-friendly spaces, and there are more and more of something like these.
I used to work in the real estate industry for more than ten years, and I obviously feel misogyny in the industry. So I want to open a feminist bookstore to help women realize their current situation. Ninety percent of the books in the bookstore are feminist.
Q：Can you tell us a little bit about what you’re currently doing?
I am currently running an independent bookstore, and I used to be a marketing executive in a real estate company, doing some planning and some operational work. I opened this bookstore because I have always liked to read books, and I also support some independent bookstores, and there are lots of independent bookstores in Chengdu, but I found that most of them are male managers, and I enjoyed my own reading method, and I want to combine this with feminism, and then I used to do marketing, I am good at doing various offline art activities, so I opened such an independent bookstore.
Q: Are most of the customers who come to your bookstore women?
Maybe 95% of the customers are women, 5% of the customers are men, this proportion is very surprising to me, even including my official account, and the followers of my personal public account are also 90% female and 10% male.
Q: What kind of concept does it seem like feminism or feminism to you?
It was probably 2017, it should be the first time that the book called misogyny was introduced to China, and I was quite shocked after reading it, because the industry I was engaged in was the real estate industry, and the misogynistic plot was very serious, and then after I finished reading that book, I felt that I was one of the accomplices of misogyny, I hated myself at that time, and I even became depressed for a period of time because of it, and since then, I have been out of control at the beginning of contact with feminism, and consciously read books about feminism.
Feminism as I understand it is actually a kind of right, that is, fighting for a kind of rights of humans, not that we should be above men. Many people regard feminism as too sacred, and sometimes people forget that feminism is actually a human right, and the equality between men and women that we pursue is actually equality between people.
Q: If it were you or personally, what would you like to convey with Nüshu? If it’s possible, or will it be combined with work, or something?
I don’t know, it’s actually quite contradictory, I think the pressure on women in this society is already very great, and if I have to learn this new way of writing, it will actually add some burden to women.
If there is any APP, or some interesting form, so that everyone can learn about it more conveniently, make it popular, but also take back our own right to speak, and then promote it in a better way, because I think some ancient cultures should be promoted.
For example, many people think that if you are a feminist bookstore manager, you should have a high level of educational or cultural literacy, and I think that as an individual, I am very one-sided and limited, and it is because of my one-sidedness and limitations that I have to keep learning.
Because we are more based on the equality of people, it is not a pure business activity, it is more or contains emotional connections. After some of the activities, some people will give me feedback, saying that feminism used to be just a theory in their minds , but now it has become a very concrete practice, including menstrual shame and sexual harassment, and I think these issues should really be discussed all the time, and they deserve to be discussed all the time.
Q: Did you have any memorable experiences during the time you opened the bookstore?
One aspect is feminism itself, especially in the community, where there are some points that are very divided in the direction of public opinion. The second is that when something becomes a doctrine, it’s the collective unconscious, or the collective consciousness, then it’s a centralized way, but if the whole world doesn’t come together to shout out for our rights, it won’t have that much influence, and we have to shout it out in the face of injustice.
At the same time, I’m also very worried, if I encourage women to have subjectivity in society, or help them establish subjectivity, will they also suffer some harm in the process of establishing this subjectivity, maybe they will live obediently, maybe they won’t be hurt, and whether they have such a strong heart.
But it’s really hard to do feminist content, some people ask you to be an elite, but I don’t want to be coerced by elitism anymore, I want to live a more comfortable life, for example, they will ask me to dress up, to be an elite woman, to discuss books with others, or to lead people to read, but I don’t think that kind of way is what I like, I think reading is a very personal thing.
Q:Can you tell us a little bit about what you’re currently doing?
My main business is an engineer, and then I am a side business to engage in some women’s rights offline activities, women’s rights talk shows, yes, many people think that he is a performance art, that is, the main thing is this, and may also engage in some other offline activities, that is, feminist theory and the like, that is, let some people who have already found a job in the UK share how he got his first job in the UK, and then our activity is that cisgender men are not allowed to come in. I just want to have such a female space to connect with each other, not a female connection dominated by sexual relationships.
Q:I would like to ask what was the motivation or reason for starting this?
It’s a long story, that is, maybe 2022 is a very important year, it’s a series of things, and then I find that maybe doing some things has repercussions, and it can change some things, and then I went to some book clubs in 2023, and before 2022, I was my first job, and I didn’t change jobs, it was October in 2022, which was still a very important month, and then it was uh, I went to a company that was relatively idle, and yes, Then at the beginning of 2023, I participated in some activities of the Chinese community here in London, and then met some intellectuals, and then I also saw those on Instagram, that is, there is a feminist account, and it has some videos about feminist talk shows, and then I discussed it with a few friends, and I started to do it.
Q:What kind of concept does it seem like feminism or feminism to you?
I think feminism is probably a gender perspective, and you can become very sensitive to a lot of things. Before understanding and contacting feminist theories, you may only get angry and then be aggrieved, and you don’t know where these emotions come from, but after feminism comes into contact with feminist theories, you will know that you will provide you with theoretical contact solutions to explain some phenomena, and why you are angry, that is, the rationality of your anger, which provides rationality for my anger.
Q:Are there any specific examples?
For example, let’s talk about sexual harassment, sexual harassment is not generally about women wearing short skirts or something, and we have some places where men don’t feel safe going out at night, but women don’t feel safe.
Q:Because my project is about Nüshu, have you heard of Nüshu before?
I’ve heard of it,Well,But I don’t know how to write,I don’t recognize it,I think this is probably the only way to be able to use it.
Q:Do you think Nüshu has any relevance to modern feminism, or anything else you’ve learned?
For example, in China, there are no women on the Standing Committee of the Central Political Bureau, girls are excluded, and then I am an engineer, and there are no women on the construction site, and there are all men on the construction sites abroad, and they have been talking about equality between men and women for several years, and then you can indeed see those women in the office after designing, but I found that they are women in their forties and fifties, whether in the workplace, on the street, or in the talk show places I run, women in their forties and fifties have disappeared, and I don’t understand where they have gone.
In fact, the feminist open mic is the home of the young people born after 2000, and you will find young people everywhere, I think now not only women are excluded on many occasions, especially this middle-aged woman will be excluded.
There are also people who are 60 to 70 years old who have retired, and then they appear again, and you see the square dancers, all of them are retired people, and the people in their forties and fifties, are they the most exploited?
It stands to reason that men in their forties and fifties have a lot of resources in society, but women in their forties and fifties should also have some resources, so I hope that there will be a space for women who can connect people of different ages.
And then I wanted to have a debate about whether sex work is work, but I couldn’t find the other side, and everyone thought that sex work was work, because I was probably surrounded by feminists, and we first acknowledged that it was work, and that it was work, even though it was exploited badly, but it was work, and then I wanted to change the debate to whether sex work could be demanded.
But there’s a problem, and that is that our group of people who have gone to higher education, who haven’t been sex workers, talk about sex work, and while we could all be sex workers, it’s a sad fact. But if you let the sex workers come to a public place, and you let her expose herself as a sex worker, I think the society is still very discriminatory against them, and it is also a kind of violence against them, so I think it is very difficult.
And I want to do a job search forum, but I don’t want to get into that utilitarian, economic narrative, I want to find a smuggler, but I can’t find it, and then my friend says you’re not from that class, I may really not be able to get in touch, or even if I do, I can’t avoid that I’m going to have a kind of condescending attitude.
So for Nüshu, you may only be able to connect to the same class as you if you were going to do it.
But I think the most important thing is to create all kinds of women’s spaces, which can have a butterfly effect, no matter how small it is, and no matter how big you do it, of course, if you can do it.
I also think that we are in a huge commercial society, and if a thing wants to be widely disseminated, it may inevitably have to be commercialized, and even I think that many original things may inevitably be transformed in the process of its development.
Q:If it were you or personally, what would you like to convey with Nüshu? If it’s possible, or will it be combined with work, or something?
Even if I have to learn Nüshu first, it’s also a threshold, and I have to learn it first, that is, if it’s just as a symbol, I’ve seen some girls use it to write on placards, write slogans like freedom.
So I think you say that there is a threshold for this thing, but if you participate in the event as a woman, everyone writes together, like writing calligraphy, it should be quite interesting, it can be a tool to connect all kinds of women together, and then make this thing not disappear, because it has a certain feminist meaning in it, I think this is quite meaningful.
But I do that offline event, I found that you have to make things fun so that people will come, I once tried to do an offline women’s self-defense thing, and no one came, I think I think it’s either fun, or it’s really useful.
So the offline activities I did sold out every time, and one was a women’s rights talk show. It’s that although everyone is an amateur, it’s really interesting, and then there’s a job search symposium, because everyone wants to find friends, they really want to stay and stay abroad, so you either use it well, or make it interesting, and everyone will come to offline activities, that is, it doesn’t just look meaningful, it is to attract people to come, and I think the most important thing is to create a women’s space, connect with everyone, connect with people. It probably means a little more, I think.
Question：What kind of resonance did you get from studying women’s writing or making this documentary?
Director Shuting:
Actually, I think my resonance with Nüshu is probably a kind of persistence, because in the first year, I didn’t want to do it because I thought it was so boring. At first, I thought it was so boring, but I was really impressed by the fact that Mr. Li, who passed down Nüshu, would go to four different communities in one day and teach the residents how to write Nüshu, and he talked about it to every one of the people who came to him.
Ms. Hu is one of those people who, whether I’m working with her in the fields or in the mountains, she tells me that she just wants to pass on what her grandmother taught her.
Ms. He learned Nüshu after she retired. She started from scratch, she went to Beijing to find materials, and then she learned one word at a time. When she told me about this, she didn’t complain to me about her suffering, but she just said that she was very happy, and that she felt that Nüshu could make her proud, and that Nüshu could help her find a new sense of enjoyment in her retirement years, and I felt that this kind of optimism touched me.
Artist, Nüshu and Contemporary Art Creation Researcher, RuoXi:
When I first started to create artwork about Nüshu, I was actually moved by the mother-daughter duet song in the movie, because I felt that even though I didn’t understand the culture, or I couldn’t understand, I couldn’t understand the words at first, but this model, the communication between mother and daughter, between women and women, that kind of conveys this kind of emotion, is also what we modern women need. Then I saw a quote from Ms. Hu Meiyue that particularly struck a chord with me. She said that she didn’t think she was very smart and she wasn’t very good with words, but I would like to quote a sentence from Mr. Fei Xiaotong in Vernacular China, that people who grow up in a vernacular background may not be particularly educated, but that doesn’t mean that they are intellectually challenged. But it doesn’t mean that they are intellectually challenged, it’s just a matter of knowledge, not intellect. So I think the culture of Nüshu embodies this saying, that they are able to utilize their female intelligence in this particular female culture and carry it forward. Why Ms. Hu Meiyue felt that she was able to keep her mind off of her own thoughts while embroidering, is that there is actually a healing effect of psychology, so I will be able to capture artistic inspiration and theoretical research from the smallest details of life and their words. I would also like to add, there are so many people on the road to promote Nüshu, just to say that I have only come into contact with these people, but I also hope that more people will pay attention to, you say, more works, more practice can be in the Nüshu cultural heritage, so I hope that why I give my name to the tide, and I also hope that this movie can use a small force to let everyone to understand the culture of Nüshu.
