Folk Costumes: Asian Part 2

Hello! This is the second part of my folk costumes for Asia. As I said in my previous article I'm compiling some of my old work from SDC to make articles on here. I will try to make more of these articles because I love talking about culture and folklore.

This article will include folk costumes of: Bhutan, Vietnam, North and South Korea, and Japan.

Bhutan:

Bhutan is a small landlocked country in between China and India. The official language is Dzongkha. Most Bhutanese people are Buddhist. Bhutan is a constitutional monarchy. The King of Bhutan is Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck and the Queen Consort is Jetsun Pema.

The folk costume for women is called Kira. It is a long wrap around skirt that is wrapped around the body. The Kira is held up by belt called 'kera' This wrap around skirt is worn with a long sleeve blouse underneath called a 'wonju' and a jacket overtop called 'toego'. The Toego is held together with with a silver broach and the sleeves are folded to show off the wonju.

In modern day Bhutan Kira is still worn all the time. This is because Bhutan is one of the remaining countries that has laws as to what people can wear in public. Women are required to wear Kira out in public and men are required to wear the male folk costume called 'gho'. Every citizen of Bhutan must wear either Kira or Gho depending on your gender. 

Viet Nam:

Áo dài is a long tunic (áo) worn over palazzo like pants(dài). It is made of silk. It can come in any colour. The tunic usually comes with a high "oriental style" collar in traditional styles. Modern style tunics have no collar. Traditionally áo dài was a loose garment with lots of fabric however modern áo dài are very fitted. 

The earliest form of the áo dài dates back to the Nguyen dynasty of the 18th century. It was mostly worn by aristocrats who favoured expensive fabric. From the 20th century on, many schools for girls have had the áo dài as the uniform for students. A famous Vietnamese fashion designer known as 'Le Mur' helped modernize the áo dài by creating the fitted version we see today. During the communist period modern áo dài was rarely worn in Viet Nam as it was seen as too decadent. Looser versions were preferred during the communist period and was only worn at weddings and other special occasions. 

Currently the áo dài is now worn as school uniforms for girls and is also uniform for many service industries like flight attendant, waitresses, bank tellers, etc.. It is usually worn for special occasions now but is still worn day to day by some women in Viet Nam. 

North Korea and South Korea:

Hanbok (한복)clothing is what the South Korean's call their traditional folk costume. It is called Joseon-ot (조선옷) in North Korea. Women's  clothing consists of a shirt called a Jeogori and a skirt called Chima. A Jeogori is a plain blouse that is long sleeved. It is worn by both men and women, but the women's is much different. A woman's jeogori comes to the waist line. The Chima also known as a Sang, or Gun comes to above the waist line and is worn with a belt. Petticoats are worn under a Chima skirt. The Jeogori is worn over the Chima and belt. There are many different accessories worn with Hanbok clothing including various types of hair clips and different pendants. 

Presently Hanbok clothing is worn only on special occasions but like many folk costumes they used to be worn as everyday wear in the old times. Hanbok clothing has been around since 3rd century BCE. It has changed much during this time, sleeves changed shape, Jeogori changed length, Chima styles varied. 

Joseon-ot clothing is one of the national Symbols of North Korea, and is worn often to showcase the culture of North Koreans. North Korean culture is very insular so there are very little influence from outside cultures. Certain styles that have faded from South Korean Hanbok are still present in North Korean Joseon-ot. 

Japan: 

Kimono is a long robe with long sleeves and a high collar tied with a sash called an 'Obi'. They are always worn left side overtop of the right. You only see the right overtop the left when someone dies and is being buried. To make a kimono you require one whole bolt of material usually silk, brocade, crepe or satin and the bolt is called a 'tan'. A traditional kimono is hand sewn and hand decorated. Kimonos are worn with traditional shoes called 'geta' or 'zori' which are different kinds of clog sandals.

The earliest form of kimono came about in the 5th century AD. It used to be called 'gofuku'. The early kimonos were very heavily influenced by the hanfu dresses worn in China. Over time the style of kimonos changed and modified just like any other folk costume. During the 1800s the clothes Japanese people wore shifted from kimonos to Western clothes. Now kimonos are only worn on special occasions. 

Thank you for reading! I will make more of these articles, one for Europe, Africa, Central America and the Middle East. I also plan to make new write-ups about folk costumes I didn't feature on SDC. I plan to make several articles about East Indian folk costumes. I look forward to making those. 

-Amy Katrina 

Folk Costumes: Asian Part 1

Hello everyone! Today I will be compiling some of my old work on the blog I used to write for. When I wrote for SDC I made articles about folk costumes and recreated them on Stardoll. For this series of articles on this blog I will just include pictures of each folk costume and the write up I had for each folk costume. I include history and descriptions of each folk costumes. I will mainly focus on female folk costume because when I recreated them on SD I only did the female folk costume.

This entry will be about Asian folk costumes. I have to split this one into 2 articles because I have so many from Asia that if I were to include them all I'd have a really long article. The countries on this part will be: China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Cambodia.

Let's get started:

China:

A cheongsam also known as qipao ( 旗袍) is a dress that has a high collar with ornamental buttons. The modern cheongsam is tailored and tight fitting with short sleeves. The old cheongsam was loose aand long and only showed a woman's head, hands and tips of her feet. The modernization of the cheongsam happened in the 1920's in Shanghai when influential women of the time like celebrities and noble women adopted the new modern style. For a while in the 1960's to 1970's the Chinese government tried to get rid of the cheongsam and many other cultural things during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Since the 1980's cheongsam and other cultural things have been accepted back by the Chinese people and have made their way back into fashion. Now-a-days women usually wear cheongsams at formal or diplomatic events. Also some women are required to wear cheongsam as a uniform like as a waitresses or flight attendants.

Indonesia:

A kebaya is a set of a blouse and skirt worn by women in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, and Burma. The word kebaya actually comes from the Arab word "abaya" and the Javanese word "kemben" meaning chest wrap or blouse. Kebayas can be made of many different fabrics including cotton, silk, or batik or the traditional songket fabric. Most kebayas are heavily embroidered or brocade. Blouses are usually transparent with a chest wrap worn underneath.

There are a few different varieties of kebaya worn by different regions and different ethnic groups. The one I chose to recreate is from the Peranakan (ethnic Chinese) people called 'Nonya kebaya'. 'Nonya kebaya' is mostly worn in Malaysia and Singapore by women of Peranakan ethnicity.

Malaysia: 

A Baju Kurung is a long tunic and a long skirt underneath. It is usually worn with a tudong (hijab). Baju Kurung is Malay for "Enclosed Dress". The word "baju kurung" can also refer to the traditional clothes Malay men wear, but is almost always referring to the female dress. There are 2 different styles of tunic:  teluk belanga which has no collar, and cekak musang which has a standing collar with buttons. This style of dress has always been popular with Malay  women even in the present day. It is most popular with Muslim women but is also worn by other ethnic minorities in Malaysia, mostly due to baju kurung being the uniform of most schools and civil servant jobs.

 Cambodia: 

Sampot is a long cloth tied in various ways to make a skirt or dhoti like pants. Each style of draping has a name and different weave of silk. Silk is very important in Khmer culture and the weaving techniques used in each type of Sampot are preserved in their culture. The type of fabric used in each Sampot used to be an indicator of social class.

In present day Cambodia Sampot is only worn at special occasions, but in the olden days it was worn daily.

The ones I chose to point out are Sampot Sang and Sampot Samloy.

Sampot Sang is a simple silk skirt tied in a knot in the front worn with a simple blouse. The other style I recreated is Sampot Samloy, which is a light woven long skirt worn with a matching blouse. Puffy sleeved blouses are most commonly worn with Sampot. The Khmer Sampot is very similar to the folk costumes of the surrounding countries especially Laos, Thailand, Burma and Indonesia. 

This concludes my article for this week. I know I was 2 weeks late. I'm sorry. Stay tuned for next weeks article which will be a continuation of Asian folk costumes I've written about.  

Songs That Are Helping Me Through a Bad Time in My Life

Hello everyone! Today my article is a personal one. These songs are all songs that have helped me out recently. Most of my friends know I haven't been okay mentally the past few months. I've been almost suicidal at times this year. I honestly don't know what has caused this sudden downfall in my mental health. I am in the process of getting counselling and I'm fighting every day. For those who don't know, I have doctor diagnosed OCD, Social Anxiety Disorder, and Clinical Depression.

Anyways, music has really helped out quite a bit. I Googled songs that are about mental health and found one site that listed all these songs about mental health problems. I started searching a lot of the songs, mostly ones by artists I recognized and then some that I didn't recognize. I found lots, but I will list the ones that have helped the most. I will be focusing on the lyrics and not the song itself.  I will also include the lyrics that stuck the most for me. This list is mostly about the recent songs I have found, not old favourites, because they aren't about mental health. They are about the oddest things but they have been helping me relax every night to help me sleep. I listen to music every night just to calm down enough to sleep. 

Here are the 5 songs that have been helping me cope:

Kodaline 'One Day'

This song I found a few weeks ago. The lyrics describe a girl going through depression or some other kind of mental problem in my opinion. That is what it means to me. I can relate to the lyrics "One day it's here and then it's gone/How are you still holding on?" speaks to me by the fact I'll go days where I'm fine and my OCD is not bothering me and then the next day everything changes and I'm back to being in agony. I also relate to these lines "You've felt this way for far too long /Waiting for a change to come" because I have had OCD for so long and I expect it to get better but it never does. Finally the other lyric that gets to me is "You always try to see yourself /Through the eyes of someone else" because of my coping mechanism of making new people in my head. It's really too long to explain here. I might make a article about this coping mechanism I have but today is not that day. 

Owl City 'Silhouette'

I love this song so much. It is a perfect way to explain what it feels like to go through mental health crisis. I could quote literally every line in this song because it is so relatable. One of the most relatable lines is "I'm new to this grief I can't explain /But I'm no stranger to the heartache and the pain" because I have had OCD for years but recently it's gotten worse and is slightly different,  so I'm new to the suffering yet very familiar with it.

Twenty One Pilots 'Car Radio'

This song is one of the most helpful songs on this list. I found it a few months ago and to me it helps describe intrusive thoughts. The song is about someone suffering from either really bad depression or intrusive type thoughts, who's car radio is stolen and they can't listen to music in their car anymore which is their distraction. This song also reminds me that I'm not alone in having to distract myself to get by. 

 I have been trying so many things to distract myself from my OCD that when I don't have a distraction my mind feels like I'm at war. The line "Sometimes quiet is violent" speaks to me because I feel like I can't just sit around and have to listen to my own thoughts. I have to distract myself. Another 2 lines "I ponder of something terrifying /'Cause this time there's no sound to hide behind" again describe what it's like not to have a distraction.

Sum 41 'Slipping Away'
This is just a really short song from their album 'Chuck'. It really helps describe what it's like on really bad days. The entire body of the song describes what it's like day to day during a period of poor mental health. "I'm trying to make it through each day /I'm falling apart now in every way /I'm finding it harder to get by /There's a hole in my heart /And I don't know why /Now I've come to realize"

Twenty One Pilots 'Truce'

When you are mentally unwell you literally live day to day. This song describes what it's like to go through that. It is also a song that reminds me to just keep going even if it's day to day. This song doesn't have many lyrics, but you don't need many lyrics to get your point across. It is also a song discouraging suicide and that can be important when the agony won't stop.

I hope you take time to listen to these songs, they are good songs. I hope I haven't alarmed anyone with this subject. Please don't worry about me, I'm making it through all right and I am receiving help. I'm not suicidal currently. I thank you all for reading and I will post another article next week

-Amy Katrina