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Description

Black glazed blouse with rounded neck, long sleeves and side opening with metal frog closures. Around the neck is a light and dark blue band with a triangle motif. The inside is unlined.

Narrative

This type of cloth was called chou bouh in Cantonese. The tunic appears to have been worn very little, if at all. It was kept folded in the dowry chest of Lau, Sei-mui or her mother-in-law, resulting in the deep creases that can be seen. At that time women were sometimes reluctant to wear new clothing while working, preferring instead to save it for special occasions. As a result, it sometimes was never worn. Mrs. Lau, Sei-mui was the daughter-in-law of the original owner of this tunic, and was 72 years old at the time of donation.

History Of Use

In the Tsuen Wan villages until about the 1950s, women, both married and married, often wore tunics made of hemp, especially in summer for working, as it was relatively cool. It was heavily dyed so that the dye at first came off on their hands when the clothing was new. They sometimes prepared the hemp themselves and spun it, and it was then often woven by itinerant weavers and cut and sewn by local tailors. A very old song sung by Mrs. Yau Chan, Shek-ying suggests that in the past they sometimes wove it themselves. Cloth of this type was made into the side-fastening tunics worn with pants by women. The pants worn with the tunics were commonly made of cotton, which was more comfortable. The styles changed over time, with the tunics becoming somewhat shorter and less voluminous. By the 1960s-70s, younger women were wearing fitted side- or front-fastening tops, sometimes with short sleeves, and sometimes of patterned fabric. The pants were sometimes made of the same fabric, or plain fabric. The set of matching top and pants was called saamfuh. Men also wore clothing made of dyed or glazed hemp as well as other fabrics. They changed to westernized clothing earlier than women did, however, and by the late 1960s it was only elderly men who wore Chinese style clothes. After the mid-twentieth century the New Territories of Hong Kong began to undergo fundamental changes. The people who had been settled there before 1898, when the British colonizers claimed the area, began to give up rice agriculture and coastal fishing, turning instead to wage labour and increased employment overseas. By the end of the century, educational opportunities leading to the possibility of white-collar work also increased, together with western influences. Twentieth century changes meant that objects and clothing once useful and appropriate were no longer needed and generally were discarded. Some were saved by their owners, who sometimes were willing to donate them to museums, sharing, also, their knowledge of how they were made and used.