Chinese embroidery pouches, purses, or small bags. Chinese: 香包; pinyin: Xiāngbāo; lit. 84 When they are used as Chinese perfume pouch (or sachet), they are referred as xiangnang (Chinese: 香囊; pinyin: xiāngnáng; lit. In present-days China, xiangbao are still valued traditional gifts or token of fortune. 216 In everyday life, hebao are used to store items. Xiangbao are also used in Traditional Chinese medicine. There are many ethnic groups in China which share the custom of wearing pouches. The hebao is also a type of adornment used in traditional Chinese clothing (including in hanfu and in the Manchu people’s qizhuang). Manchu pouches are called fadu. Hebao is also used as token of love since purses were personal items. While the wearing of Chinese pouches can be traced back to the Pre-Qin dynasties or much earlier, the term of hebao only appeared after the Song dynasty. 100 They are used as a gift between young girls and boys and their acceptance towards each other. Perfume pouches are also a love token for the ethnic Manchu; and when two youths fall in love, the boy is given a handmade perfume pouch by the girl. 83 Chinese perfume pouches, xiangbao, are still valued items which are exchanged between lovers in the countryside. In Manchu culture, the pouch can also hold tobacco. Tobacco pouches are usually made by a wife for her husband or by a maiden for her lover. It is also customary for the brides from the Yunnan ethnic minorities to sew hebao in advance prior to their wedding; they would then bring hebao to their bridegroom’s home when they get married. It is unknown when the perfume pouch became a pledge of romantic love. 100 Ginkgo nuts, peanuts, sweets would be placed inside those pouches as a symbolism of ‘giving birth to babies as soon as possible’. 100 The number of hebao they would require to make would depend on the numbers of people (e.g. musicians, singers and guests) who would attend their wedding ceremony. These perfume sachets are called xiangbao (香包). Xiangbao is used in Traditional Chinese medicine. On the Dragon Boat Festival, Chinese mugwort would often be inserted in the hebao to exorcise the Five Poisons. 463 The wearing of Chinese medicine xiangbao as a preventive to diseases are a characteristic of Traditional Chinese medicine, known as dressing therapy. 463 These medicine pouches are used to induce resuscitation, awaken consciousness, eliminate turbid pathogens with aromatics, invigorate organs (spleen and stomach), avoid plague and filth, repel mosquitoes and other insects. The hebao was developed from the nangbao, a type of small bag which would keep one’s money, handkerchief and other small items as ancient Chinese clothing did not have any pockets. The most common material for the making of nangbao was leather. The earliest nangbao had to be carried by hand or by back, but with time, the nangbao was improved by people by fastening it to their belts as the earliest nangbao were too inconvenient to carry. The custom of wearing of pouches dates back to the pre-Qin dynasties period or earlier; the earliest unearthed artefacts of Chinese pouches is one dating from the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period. They were worn at the waist and were used to carry items (such as seals, keys, handkerchiefs). In the Southern and Northern dynasties, hebao became one of the most popular form of clothing adornment. In the Song dynasty, the term hebao referred to a small bag which would store carry-on valuables (e.g. money and personal seal). Since then, the custom of wearing hebao continued throughout the centuries through the late Qing dynasty and the early Republic of China. It then vanished in cities due to the clothing reforms when pockets became of common use. Incense, pearls, jade, and other valuable items were placed inside the hebao to dispel evil spirits and foul smells. Despite its decline in common use, the hebao was still popular in some rural areas and ethnic minority areas in present-day China allowing the Chinese folk art to be transmitted to modern times. The tradition of carrying xiangbao can be traced back to the Duanwu festival, where a hebao would be filled with fragrant herbs and was embroidered with the patterns of the Five Poisons; it was meant to ward off evil spirits and wickedness while brings wealth and auspiciousness to its carrier. According to old sayings, these perfume pouches were made to commemorate Qu Yuan: when Qu Yuan drowned himself in the Miluo River, people living in the neighbouring Qin made and carried pouches stuffed with sweet grass and perfumed which was loved by Qu Yuan out of sympathy for the poet and to cherish his memory. It is also likely that the use of xiangbao is a custom which dates back to ancient times traditions, when people in ancient times used to carry a medicine bags when they would go hunting in order to drive poisonous insects away. According to the Neize of the Liji《禮記•内则》, young people have to wear a scented bag, called jinying (衿纓), during this period, when they meet their parents to meet their parents to pay respect. It is also believed that the use of xiangbao is a long tradition of the Han Chinese; the use of xiangbao can be traced back to the Tang dynasty when women living in rural areas would make perfume pouch (made of coloured silk, silk threads, gold and silver beads) in every year on the 4th lunar month. During the reign of Qin Shi Huang, perfume pouches were attached on the girdles of young men to show respect to their parents and their in-laws. By the Qing dynasty, xiangbao were not exclusively used on the Duanwu Festival; they were used on daily basis. Nearly everyone carried a xiangbao regardless of social classes, ages and gender. 87 The Manchu also carried xiangbao all year round. The Qing emperors would also award perfume pouches to the princes and ministers to show his favour for them on important festivals or at the end of each year. 87 Moreover, according to the Qing dynasty custom, the emperors and the empresses were required to carry a xiangbao on them all year round. Xiangbao were used extensively by the common people regardless of gender and ages; they would carry perfume pouches and give it to others as presents while young men and women would often use it as a toke of love. Xiangbao were appreciated for their fragrance but they were also considered as a preventive against diseases. Yuyong hebao (Chinese: 御用荷包; pinyin: yùyòng hébāo), ornamented purses which were manufactured for the imperial palace, were an extraordinary mark of imperial favour and expressed the high regards which was held by the Qing emperor to his generals; the emperors only sent to those hebao to his highest generals. The bag was originally made of out animal hide and was worn at the waist; it was secured on the belt for the usage of carry food. The fadu of the Manchu people originated from a form of bag used by the ancestors of the Manchu who lived a hunting life through dense forested mountains. Later on, when the ancestors of the Manchu left the mountain regions and began an agricultural life, the hide bag was developed into a small and delicate accessory which would only contain sweetmeat. Manchu women would use small pieces of silk and satin to the sew the bag and would decorate it with flower and birds embroidery patterns. Hebao is a bag composed of 2 sides: the interior and exterior side. They also use their pouches to carry perfume and tobacco. The opening of the bag is threaded with a silk string that can tightened and loosened. It is often embroidered on its outside while the inside is made of a thick layer of fabric. They are made in various shapes, such as rotund, oblong, peach, ruyi, and guava. The Manchu people’s tobacco pouch is tied with a small wooden gourd which is carved with rich patterns. Each areas in China have a distinctive forms of hebao. 413 They usually came into 2 sizes: either large or small. 413 These hebao could also contains gems, jewels and precious metals, such as shanhu (corals), qizhen babao (lit. The gourd acts primarily as a fastener to prevent its carrier from losing his pouch, by making it harder for the fastener to slip from the seam between the waist and the cloth belt which was used by the Manchu people in the past. Manchu people regardless of gender wore pouches, but they wore it differently according to their gender. Men wore their pouches at the waist while women tied their pouches to the 2nd buttons of their traditional Manchu dress, qizhuang. In the Dream of the Red Chamber, a hebao is personally made by Daiyu and is given to Baoyu as an expression of her love for him; however, she misunderstood that Baoyu had deliberately given the purse away and destroyed the other hebao that she was making. Xiuhebao (Chinese: 绣荷包; lit. Huguang diao from the regions of Hunan and Guangdong, is a popular song since the Ming and Qing dynasties. 100 In reality, hanfu inspired wedding dress Baoyu treasured the hebao so much that he would have never given it away. 83 These songs depict the thoughts of young girls who miss their lovers and are personally embroidering a hebao for their beloved. Qiedai – Eggplant-shaped purses worn by imperial officials in ancient China. 83 Chinese folks about embroidering hebao are sung in all parts of China, with the most familiar ones being the ones in Shanxi, Yunnan, and Sichuan. Yudai – Fish-shaped tally bag; a pouch used in ancient China as a form of yufu (fish tally). Jin, Jie (2011). Chinese music. Li Wang, Rong Li (Updated ed.). Wanlong, Gao, Dr (2012). A handbook of chinese cultural terms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. The 2021 International Conference on Machine Learning and Big Data Analytics for IoT Security and Privacy : SPIoT-2021. Trafford On Demand Pub. Chinese auspicious culture. Evy Wong (English ed.). Volume 1. J. D. MacIntyre, Jinghua Zhao, Xiaomeng Ma. Legge, James. “《內則 – Nei Ze》”. They should all bang at their girdles the ornamental (bags of) perfume; and as soon as it is daybreak, they should (go to) pay their respects (to their parents) and ask what they will eat and drink. If they have eaten already, they should retire; if they have not eaten, they will (remain to) assist their elder (brothers and sisters) and see what has been prepared. 男女未冠笄者，雞初鳴，咸盥漱，櫛縰，拂髦總角，衿纓，皆佩容臭，昧爽而朝，問何食飲矣。 若已食則退，若未食則佐長者視具。 Davis, Nancy E. (2019). The Chinese lady : Afong Moy in early America. Money in Asia (1200-1900) : small currencies in social and political contexts. Jane Kate Leonard, Ulrich Theobald. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License; additional terms may apply. This page was last edited on 29 July 2024, at 10:02 (UTC). By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
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