学进去

You may think you couldn’t live through summer without air conditioning. But in ancient China, hand fans were almost the only way to drive the heat away.

Chinese people started to use hand fans over 2, 000 years ago. The fans came in different shapes and were made from all kinds of materials. Palm leaf fans were cheap and easy to make. Feather fans marked the owner’s high status. Sandalwood fans could send out a sweet smell. Later, hand fans became far more than just something that could cool you down. They developed into works of art, in which Tuanshan-round fans, and Zheshan-folded fans, were the most common. In the shape of a fullmoon, Tuanshan were usually made of silk. Women, especially those in the royal palace, liked to use them. Poets in ancient China often compared an abandoned (被抛弃的) woman to Tuanshan. A poet in the Qing Dynasty, Nalan Xingde was a typical example. He wrote, “If only life were as beautiful as when we first met, why should the autumn wind bother to pity deserted painted fans?”

Meanwhile, men, especially the literati (文人), used Zheshan. The literati liked them because Zheshan were usually made of paper and they could paint and write poems on them. It was a way for them to show off their skills in literature, painting and calligraphy (书法).

Today, Chinese people still use these fans, though not many people write or paint on them any more. This summer, why not paint one of your own?