Men can’t understand: the unique female writing of Nu Shu (7 photos)

In childhood and adolescence, quite a lot of people have fun writing secret codes to exchange notes with friends or keep a diary.





Usually such code is primitive and easy to decipher. But residents of Jiangyong County, in the Chinese province of Hunan, went further. And they invented an entire written language intended exclusively for representatives of the weaker half.



Presumably, Nu Shu appeared in the 11th century, but at least some information about this cultural phenomenon became available only at the end of the last century.

What was the starting point for its appearance? Again, it’s impossible to recognize due to the passage of time. But legend says that the reason is limitedness and the desire to become part of a certain community. In ancient times, Chinese women did not have the right to receive an education. And in the traditionally female occupation of embroidery, they gradually came to the diamond-shaped writing of hieroglyphs. It was easier to depict them with stitches on fabric.





Another version says that the secret writing was invented by the imperial concubine Hu Yuxiu in order to send news to her family and complain about the hard life in the golden cage.



Initially, hieroglyphs of the female language were not written, but exclusively embroidered. Or they wove it, decorating clothes and accessories with whole stories. Poems, songs and entire biographies appeared stitch by stitch on robes and belts.



Ant tongue, as Nui Shu was called because of the slope adapted for embroidery, giving the elements a resemblance to the legs of insects, has turned into an entire subculture. With its help, Chinese women corresponded, concluded agreements and even created a separate direction - the “message of the third day.” Something like a parting message for a young wife, to whom her mother, relatives and friends addressed her when, in accordance with tradition, she moved to her husband’s house on the third day after marriage.



Women made no special secret of this language. The men were relatively calm about the entertainment: let them embroider, the main thing is that it’s useful. The Cultural Revolution changed this approach, and Nü Shu fell into disgrace and almost disappeared, being declared a relic of the feudal past. But now interest in the language has intensified again. Enthusiasts study it from surviving objects, since there are practically no living carriers left who received knowledge by inheritance.

Currently, this women's script is included in the National Register of Documentary Heritage and the Intangible Cultural Heritage of China. Nu Shu was also included in the Guinness Book of Records.



Still from the film “Snow Flower and the Treasured Fan”

In 2005, the novel “Snow Flower and the Treasured Fan” by writer Lisa See, dedicated to the secret language of women, was published. And a few years later the book was filmed.