Page:Illustrations of China and Its People vol. II.pdf/33



THE hair of the Chinese is uniformly black, or very dark brown, which colour is clearly seen when a single hair is viewed beneath the microscope by strong transmitted light. Their hair, too, is uniformly straight, and the men all wear the queue, while the women dress their tresses into a diversity of artistic forms to suit the prevailing fashion of the locality in which they reside. Thus No. 26 shows a young Cantonese girl of the middle class wearing a head-dress which consists of an embroidered belt of satin, ornamented with artificial Bowers, and kingfishers' feathers, and fringed with fine black silk depending from it in front to match the hair, which is cut straight across the forehead. It is a comely face, but before many years are over the natural peach bloom of her young cheeks will be replaced by the fashionable patches of vermilion which conceal the careworn features of married serfdom in China.

No. 27 shows the covering worn by the women of Southern China during the winter months. It consists of a square embroidered handkerchief of cotton or silk, folded diagonally and tied by two of the ends beneath the chin. No. 28, a young Swatow girl, exhibits one style of coiffure adopted in that part of the province; while No. 29 is another fashion belonging to the women of the same place, but of a different clan. The facial type presented in this picture is one peculiar to certain of the natives of Swatow. The nose is prominent, well-formed, and straight, the upper lip short, the teeth white and regular, and the chin well cut. As will be observed, the chignons are each of them different, and all alike deserve careful study by the ladies of Western lands. The dressing of the hair into fantastic forms is naturally a difficult task, and one which, most probably, would shut out spurious imitators in our own country, for few could throw their whole mind and energy into the work. In China, with these women, the hair is only done once or twice a week, necessity requiring the wearer to economize time. With a view to avoid injuring the elaborate coiffure during sleep, the lady supports the nape of her neck upon a pillar of earthenware or wood, high enough to protect the design from being damaged. In our land this device would imply a sacrifice of comfort, and here and there a case of strangulation would ensue; but no very grave objections could be raised to the novel chignon and its midnight scaffolding, when the interests of fashion are at stake. No. 30 is the chignon par excellence. The lady who wears it is of Ningpo extraction, and by profession a barber, who also makes wigs and chignons for sale. No. 31 gives the quaint mode of dressing the hair jn vogue among the women of Shanghai; these conceal their raven tresses beneath a black velvet snood edged with white or pale blue, and remarkable for its quiet simplicity.