The Pankou is the name of this website, and as I’ve mentioned in some of my other posts, it is the Chinese name for the traditional knotted buttons used on qipaos (or in Cantonese cheongsam). I chose it because, well, it’s a name relatively easy to pronounce and remember (this cannot be said of many other Chinese words!), but also…
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Treasure of the Week! I love qipaos, but outside of qipaos I am also a little bit obsessive about many things vintage. I therefore have a not insubstantial hoarding of “useless” things at home. Well… they are useless, but have such an old world charm and uniqueness about them that I really enjoy having them around. I’ve been thinking about…
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Goodbye for another year, my long floral qipaos It was a long, hot summer in Shanghai this year. But the nasty humidity of July and August eased into a pleasant, warm Autumn, one where you could still wear a summer dress in early October (without the stickiness of actual summer) and enjoy a stroll and ice-cream cone in the tree…
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Simplification during the Sino-Japanese war With the start of the Sino-Japanese war in 1937, the mood of China and Shanghai became considerably dampened. China had by some accounts escaped the Great Depression of the 1930s, but it suffered immensely from WWII. By the early 1940s, the flamboyant qipaos (or in Cantonese, cheongsam) of the 30s were no longer considered appropriate…
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After spending a few weeks on the rather serious task of writing about qipao history, I really couldn’t resist doing something more fun and light-hearted, especially after the last post on the 1930s. Yes, there is more history to come, but for now I am going to indulge and spend this sunny October autumn afternoon writing about my first Shanghainese…
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