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The Cool Story ofChinese Fans
Shaken in hand and a cool breezeembraces you, this is one
description of the cooling power ofthe delicate Chinese fan.
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TheFans
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The origin No one knows exactly how fans in
China were invented. The invention
or rather the discovery of the fanningfunction could have been asaccidental as follows: a primitiveman irritated with lots of flies andmosquitoes, picks up a big leaf off a
plant next to him to drive the pestsaway. To his delight, his effortresulted in cooling air movements
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Along with the progress made inagriculture in the Han and TangDynasties, an ample supply ofclothing material resulted. Silkand satin fans appeared and it
became a fashion among scholarsand artists to show their geniusby writing and painting on fansurfaces. Fans soon acquired
considerable social significanceand became a part of thestandard summer costume amongthe elite and the learned
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Folded fans were introduced toChina from Japan and Koreaabout 1,000 years ago. Theywere usually made with finepaper mounted on bamboo. Thescholars found it interesting topaint their poetic and artistic
expressions on the surface.
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Introduction China fan culture has a nationalprofound cultural foundation. It has
close relation with bamboo cultureand Buddhism culture .China hasalways been known as the kingdomof fan making. The fan in China,having three to four thousand yearshistory of evolution , already hasbeen developed greatly intohundreds types .
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Introduction
But generally is summarizedinto two major categories; Aping fan (that is TuanShan,KuiShan, wheat straw fan, jadeedition fan, etc) can't be folded;the other is folding fan whichcan be freely opened and folded
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The types of the
fans (1600B.C.-1100 B.C.) Atfirst made withfeather so "fan"worded "family"next "feather" wordThe first fans weremade of birds'feathers and treeleaves.
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The types of the
fans Fans were not used to keep off
the heat, but to keep off the
dust raised by wheels of a cart It was not until the Han Dynasty
(206 B.C.-220 A.D.) that fanswere used by common people to
enjoy cool air in summer
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The types of the
fans (ping fan)
In the western Han Dynasty,there was a kind of fan called
Hehuan fan, a kind of Ping fan ""
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Hehuan fan
Since thistype of fanappeared ,ithad beenbecame thetraditionalone
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Round fans (ping fan) were firstseen in China and remained themain shape of fans until theTang and Song dynasties
(618-1279 A. D.)
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The types of the
fans (the folding fan)
Folding fans were invented bythe Japanese. Introduced intoChina through Korea in the 11stcentury, and quickly gainedpopularity in China thereafter.
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The types of the
fans (the folding fan)
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Nowadays ,the fans mainly arefolding fansas we see in dailylife
However ,there are manydifferent kinds of folding fansaccording to their differentmaterials
Fans made of bamboo and paperbone and featherivory and carved lacquer wareand paper or silk.
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Fans made of palm tree leaves areboth economical and practical andare very popular among the people.
And the most precious fans arethose made of mother-of-pearls.
In 11st century ,Guangzhou was wellknown for its production of largequantities of ornamental fans. These
fans were not only sold in domesticmarkets, but also exported to foreigncountries.
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Fans made of eagles' feathers andother plumes were the major kindsfor export.
Hangzhou was famous for its foldingfans
Nanjing was famous for makingfolding fans
Ningbo mainly produced low-costpaper fans. As paper fans produced
in Ningbo had such a competitiveprice, Japanese paper fans werepushed out of the Chinese market.
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The history of Chinese fan can be dated toover 3,000 years ago, around the Shang
Dynasty ,The first type of fan, known as
Shanhan, was tied to a horse-drawn
carriage to shut out the strong sunshineand shelter the passengers from the
rainfall. The Shanhan was a bit like todays
umbrella. Later this Shanhan became a
long-handled fan made of thin and tough
silk or birds feathers, called a zhangshan
fan, which was mainly used by the
emperors honor guard as decoration.
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In fact, the fan was not used to helpcool people until the Zhou Dynasty,
more than 2,000 years ago. At that
time, fan was usually made of
feathers and called feather fan,which was only popular among the
noble class. The fan was
popularized during the Han
Dynasty .when the simple bamboo
fan and the cattail-leaf fan wereinvented.
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These fans were most popular amongthe common people during the SongDynasty .Around the same period, a silk
fan in the shape of the moon, called a
round fan, became the favorite of
young ladies, especially those in the
imperial place. Later, this moon-shaped
fan took on many other shapes, such as
oval flat round, or sometimes the shape
of Chinese plum flower or sunflower.
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. Usually, ribs of the fan were made ofanimal bones, wood or bamboo, while
the handle was engraved with
beautiful designs and decorated with
jade pendants. Beautiful scenes of
mountains and waters or flowers werealso embroidered on the face of a
moon-shaped fan. Deeply loved by
young ladies, the round fan was
popular in China for nearly 1,000years.
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The popularity of the moon-shaped fan even enhanced thedevelopment of painting itself.
From the Song Dynasty on, fanpainting became anindependent art form. Thetypical composition used in
fan painting could be seen inmany landscape paintings andfigure paintings at the time.
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When talking about fans today, weusually refer to the exquisite folding
fan, which is said to be introduced to
China from Japan during the late
Song Dynasty. It is rumored that the
Japanese invented the folding fanafter being inspired by bats wings.
As this fan could be easily folded and
carried, it soon came into fashion.
Compared to other types of fans, the
folding fans more like a piece of
handicraft.
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The ribs of folding fans weremade from valuable materials,such as hawks-bill turtle, ebony, mottled bamboo,
elephant trunk, carved intodifferent shapes, for example agrasshoppers legs. And thedifferent sizes of folding fans areclassified by the number of ribsthe fan has, usually 7, 9, 12, 14,16 or 18
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However, the most interesting of afolding fan is usually made of xuanpaper or silk and beautifully
painted. If a famous artist painted
the fan, it could be worth a lot of
money. For example, a folding fan
painted with running script of
Chinese calligraphy by Zhang
Daqian, a famous Chinese painter,
sold for HK$252,000. And manycontemporary painters, like Qi
Baishi, Xu Beihong, are known as
elite fan-painting artists.
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Today, there are over 500 kinds offans in China, of which thesandalwood fan from Suzhou,
Jiangsu Province, the damask silk
fan from Hangzhou, Zhejiang
Province, the fire-painting fanfrom Guangdong Province and the
bamboo thread fan are known as
the four most famous fans of
China. Recently, an exhibition of
Chinese fans was opened at the
Hongbaotang Gallery, located on
Antiques Street in Beijing.
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Through late August, theexhibition will display fans bymore than 200 artists acrossChina. During the exhibition,
some folding fans will also be forsale, priced from 300 Yuan to5,000 Yuan. Widely used forthousand years, Chinese fan is
still bringing people cool breezeand the scant of brilliant Chineseculture
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