Hello Lovely People!

I have been researching for my next book review which shall, hopefully, be on Lisa See’s Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. I hope you’re all looking forward to it! I too hope to get it to you as soon as possible.

While reading for my review for Snow Flower and the Secret Fan I came across an interesting historical tradition that is unique to the Jiangyong County in China’s province Hunan. That is, the tradition of Nu Shu a script of writing that was used exclusively by the women of the area to communicate with one another. 

Left: Standard Chinese Script. Right: Nu Shu

The Nu Shu script is a remnant from an era when women were confined indoors and it was thought that education and literacy were domains of men. Rather than being content with their life indoors, these women invented their own script of writing which they used to communicate with one another. As a result, here we have a women’s script in a mans world! French psychoanalytic feminism would be proud!

One must keep in mind however, that Nu Shu was not a language but a script. Read out loud Nu Shu sounds exactly like the local Chinese dialect of the area.

The script was not a part of formal education. Instead,  it was passed on through the generations from mother to daughter. Nu Shu was painted onto fans, woven into cloth and embroidered on to pieces of fabric. Women also used the script to write literature, poetry and songs.

This beautiful script is also known as mosquito writing. It is certainly delicate as a mosquitoes legs. Unfortunately the script is now dying since there has not been much need for it in the modern society where women are educated in the same way as men.

For those of you interested in reading more on Nu Shu go right ahead to the clicky links to various articles and websites on Nu Shu that I’ve provided down below. Some of these simply talk about the script and its form while others also talk about it’s historical context.

Happy Reading everyone!

Much Love!
The Woman Out of Time