SCHOLARSHIP HAS BEEN valued in China for thousands of years – so why don’t scholars dress in local style? On graduation day at Jiangsu Normal University, thousands of students wore classical Chinese costumes instead of standard western suits, reports Olala, a popular Chinese-Vietnamese voice on Twitter. This has become a tradition at that university in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province.
Pietro Ng, a sinologist, said most wore mianfu (冕服) and bianfu (弁服), which were worn by officials in ancient times, while others wore a shenyi (深衣), favored by scholars and ordinary people in the past.
There’s been a general revival of interest in hanfu, or traditional Chinese costume, fed by popular users of Douyin, the original TikTok, who have been posing in styles which were first seen some 3,000 years ago.
This has been encouraged by a young woman from Shanghai who goes by the name of Shiyin, and who has been posting pictures of herself looking good in traditional costume.