Chinese

Traditional dress of China's Han ethnic majority

Hanfu is the collective term for the traditional clothing of China's Han ethnicity, spanning over 2,000 years from the Han through Ming dynasties. Its three defining elements — the cross-collar closure, wide sleeves, and waist sash — reflect Confucian ritual propriety and yin-yang philosophy. Dozens of variants existed across eras, from the separated ruqun to the one-piece shenyi. Though suppressed under Qing Manchu rule, a vibrant hanfu revival movement in 21st-century China has brought these garments back into everyday wear among younger generations.

One-piece Confucian robe of ancient China

The shenyi (deep robe) is one of the most representative forms of Chinese hanfu, a one-piece garment connecting the upper and lower body that dates back to the Zhou dynasty before the Han. Featuring wide, flowing sleeves and a cross-collar closure, its name means "deeply wrapping the body." The garment carried deep Confucian symbolism — the round upper portion representing heaven and the square lower portion representing earth — and its exact cutting and sewing methods were recorded in the Book of Rites.

Jiangshi · The Chinese Hopping Corpse — A Stiff, Leaping Corpse-Spirit

A Chinese corpse-spirit, a body unburied after death that stiffens and reanimates. From rigor mortis it holds its arms forward, feet together, and hops to move. Clad in Qing-dynasty official robes, it drains the vital energy of the living and senses people by their breath. It is controlled and repelled by a Taoist priest's talismans and spells.

道士 · Taoist — An Eastern sorcerer who commands the world through the principles of the Tao

The Taoist (道士) is a religious practitioner of Taoism, originating from Laozi's Tao Te Ching and Zhuangzi's Zhuangzi. The ultimate goal is realizing the Tao (Way) and the principle of wu wei (non-action, naturalness) to become an immortal (xian). To achieve this they cultivate meditation, breathing techniques (qigong), inner alchemy (neidan), outer alchemy (waidan — alchemical elixir making), herbalism, feng shui, and divination. Merging with Korean shamanism, it became established in forms of geomancy, yin-yang and five elements theory, and astrology. A staple character in East Asian wuxia novels. Ge Hong's Baopuzi and Tao Hongjing's Zhengao are representative Taoist texts; Wudang, Qingcheng, and Longhu mountains are Taoist holy sites. Not merely religious figures but comprehensive scholars of medicine, pharmacology, astronomy, and alchemy, with Taoist alchemy contributing to the invention of gunpowder and firearms.

俠客 · Wandering Swordsman — One who traverses the martial world with justice and a blade

The wandering swordsman (俠客) is an independent swordsman roaming the jianghu (martial world) of wuxia fighting injustice. Not bound to specific clans or nations, they act by their own chivalric spirit (xia), with 'returning kindness and avenging wrongs in the jianghu' as the core value. The origin lies in Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian Biographies of Knights-Errant, recording chivalrous figures of the Han dynasty — true xia help the weak, don't bow to the strong, and value loyalty above their lives as moral heroes. From Qing-era wuxia novels to 1950s neo-wuxia by Jin Yong and Gu Long, and modern films like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Hero, they've become global characters. The ideal life is freedom requiring only a sword, a horse, and a cup of wine — often a romantic hero archetype meeting tragic fates.

The iconic single-edged Chinese saber

The dao is the representative single-edged saber of China, called the marshal of all weapons (bai bing zhi shuai). Its emblematic traits are a gently curved single edge of about 70 to 85 cm and, in its early form, a ring pommel (the huandao) at the end of the grip. Unlike the straight, double-edged jian, the dao has its edge on one side only, with a thick back, or spine, that braces the blade and makes it strong for the downward chop. It developed in earnest in the Han dynasty (206 BC to 220 AD) and was used as the standard weapon of the Chinese army for some two thousand years, down to the Qing, branching by era into many forms such as the liuyedao (willow leaf), the dadao (great saber), and the niuweidao (oxtail). Simple and sturdy, it was easy to mass-produce, and it was carried by all, from common infantry to generals.

The Imperial Dragon of Chinese Myth

The Chinese long is the archetypal East-Asian dragon, the source from which the Korean cheongnyong, the Japanese ryu and the Vietnamese long descend. Its image runs unbroken from the Neolithic — the C-shaped jade dragon of Hongshan culture (c. 3500-3000 BCE, excavated at Ongniud Banner, Inner Mongolia, in 1971, now a national first-class cultural relic in the National Museum of China) and the shell-mosaic dragon at the Xishuipo site of the Yangshao culture in Puyang (excavated 1987, c. 5300 BCE) — through Xu Shen's 'Shuowen Jiezi' (100 CE), which defined the dragon as 'chief of the scaled creatures', Wang Fu's 'Qianfu Lun' of the late Han, which first codified the 'nine resemblances' (deer antlers, camel head, rabbit eyes, snake neck, clam belly, carp scales, eagle talons, tiger soles), and Li Shizhen's 'Bencao Gangmu' (1578). The five-toed foot was fixed as the imperial monogram by an edict of the Hongwu emperor in 1393 and remained so through the Qing; princes were limited to four toes and commoners to three. The long is arranged in a five-direction colour system — Azure Dragon (East), White (West), Vermilion (South), Black (North), Yellow (Centre) — and is held to bring rain, govern rivers and embody cosmic justice; it is the only mythical creature in the twelve-animal cycle, and a child born in a Dragon year is reckoned to share the emperor's auspice.

靑龍 · Eastern Guardian of the Four Symbols

The Azure Dragon (Chinese 'Qinglong', Korean 'Cheongnyong', Japanese 'Seiryu') is the eastern guardian of the East-Asian Four Symbols (sasin / Sishen), the celestial dragon governing the East, the spring, the Wood phase of the five elements and the colour green-blue. The system — Azure Dragon of the East, White Tiger of the West, Vermilion Bird of the South, Black Tortoise of the North — was codified under the Han dynasty, in particular the 'Huainanzi' (c. 139 BCE) of Liu An and Wang Chong's 'Lunheng' (c. 80 CE), and unifies the seven lunar mansions of the eastern quadrant (Jiao, Kang, Di, Fang, Xin, Wei, Ji). Visually the Azure Dragon is distinguished from the imperial yellow long by a slimmer, more serpentine body, a green-blue scale-pattern, branched deer-style antlers and carp scales; it is the canonical image of the geomantic principle that the dragon of the East guards the left side of a settlement. The best-preserved early representations are the eastern murals of the Goguryeo tombs Gangseo Daemyo and Jungmyo (late sixth century, South Pyongan, North Korea) and the late-seventh- to early-eighth-century Kitora Tomb (Asuka village, Nara prefecture, Japan, recognised as a National Treasure in 1998). The Azure Dragon also names the Cheongwadae presidential residence in Korea ('house of green tiles', built 1939) and watches over the Eastern Flowery Gate (Donghuamen) of the Forbidden City completed in 1420.

Jade Emperor · Supreme Deity of Daoism — Emperor of Heaven

Supreme god of Daoism and Chinese folk religion. He dwells in the celestial Jade Palace (Yujing) and rules over all gods, mortals, ghosts, and natural phenomena as Emperor of Heaven. Just as the Son of Heaven rules from the earthly imperial palace, he presides over the cosmic bureaucracy from the celestial court. Each lunar 25th of the twelfth month, the heavenly gods descend to inspect the human world under his authority.