Clothes and shoes

The word for clothes is 衣服 yīfu, two characters that each used to mean a garment. 衣 yī is a drawing: you can still make out the crossed collar and the two flaps of a tunic. The Shuowen specifies 上曰衣，下曰裳, “above, it is called 衣; below, it is called 裳”: the 衣 covered the upper body, the 裳 cháng was a skirt, worn by men as well as women (Confucius too, as we shall see further down). The two merged into 衣裳 yīshang, where the second loses its tone, and the word can still be heard in the North.

The 服 fú of 衣服 is more mysterious. The Shuowen glosses it as 用, “to employ, to make use of”, and the same character is still used for serving (服务 fúwù), for taking a medicine (服药) or for admitting defeat (服气). How you get from there to clothing, I couldn’t say for certain: perhaps “what you have on you, for your use”. On the other hand, the 服 of clothing has taken root: 西装 xīzhuāng or 西服, the “Western” suit, 校服 xiàofú, the school uniform, 羽绒服 yǔróngfú, “the down garment” ⟶ the puffer jacket.

“Putting on” a garment is 穿 chuān, and the character is a little scene: 牙, the tooth, in 穴, the hole. The Shuowen reads it as “to pierce, to pass through”. You slip into your shirt like thread through the eye of a needle: 穿针 is to thread a needle, and 穿越 chuānyuè, to cross (in TV series, it even means crossing the centuries). Careful: 穿 only works for what you pull on, clothes and shoes. A hat, glasses, gloves or a watch are worn with 戴 dài (see Appearance). 穿眼镜 raises a smile.

Each garment has its measure word, and the logic is visual. You say 一件衬衫, 一件外套 for what covers the upper body; 一条裤子, 一条裙子 for what hangs down lengthwise (条 is also used for rivers and fish); 一双鞋 yì shuāng xié, 一双袜子 for what comes in pairs. A suit, jacket and matching trousers, is counted with 套, “the set”: 一套西装. Nothing difficult. But 一个裤子 remains the most common mistake among beginners.

Many names can be read literally: 毛衣 máoyī, “woollen garment” ⟶ the jumper; 连衣裙 liányīqún, “skirt joined to the top” ⟶ the dress; 牛仔裤 niúzǎikù, “little cowherd’s trousers” ⟶ jeans, the 牛仔 being the cowboy of the westerns; 背心 bèixīn, “back and heart” ⟶ the vest top, which covers precisely the back and the chest. Others come from English, by sound: 夹克 jiākè is your jacket, and T恤 T xù your T-shirt, the 恤 apparently rendering, by way of Cantonese, the shirt. And 人字拖 rénzìtuō, the flip-flop, is “the 人 slipper”: look at the strap between the toes.

When autumn comes, Chinese mothers bring out the 秋衣 qiūyī and the 秋裤 qiūkù, “the autumn garment and the autumn trousers”, a long-sleeved undershirt and long johns kept on under your clothes until spring (this is sentence 12). Teenagers are ashamed of them, mothers won’t budge, and the Internet has summed up the debate: 有一种冷，叫妈妈觉得你冷, “there is a kind of cold called: Mum thinks you’re cold”. It all comes down to three syllables, 多穿点 duō chuān diǎn, “put a bit more on”. Popular wisdom adds 春捂秋冻 chūn wǔ qiū dòng: in spring, you stay wrapped up (捂 means keeping warm by wrapping), and in autumn you toughen yourself up in the cool. The saying and the mothers do not always agree about autumn.

The northern winter long had its uniform: the 棉袄 mián'ǎo, the padded jacket, and over it the 军大衣 jūndàyī, the army’s olive-green greatcoat, worn in the 1980s by students and building caretakers alike. The puffer jacket has dethroned it. Today it is the 冲锋衣 chōngfēngyī, “the assault garment”, a waterproof hiking jacket, that you see everywhere in town, even in fine weather.

The 睡衣 shuìyī, for its part, does not always stay at home. In Shanghai (see The city of Shanghai), people long did their morning shopping in pyjamas, on the street corner, without seeing any harm in it (this is sentence 7). As the 2010 World Expo approached, the city authorities campaigned for pyjamas to stay at home; with limited success, if the photos are anything to go by. In summer, in the North, some men roll their shirts up above their bellies, or take them off altogether: this is the 光膀子 guāng bǎngzi, “bare shoulders”, which the English-language press nicknamed the Beijing bikini. Several cities have tried to ban it.

You take your shoes off when you enter someone’s home, and the host hands you 拖鞋 tuōxié, “shoes you drag along” ⟶ slippers (this is sentence 3). Note the happy coincidence: 拖鞋 is pronounced exactly like 脱鞋, “to take off your shoes”, and the gesture follows the word. Toddlers, for their part, used to wear 开裆裤 kāidāngkù, split-crotch trousers: all they had to do was squat (this is sentence 22). The disposable nappy has almost driven them out of the cities. You still see them in the countryside.

Sayings put clothing first. 衣食住行 yī shí zhù xíng, the necessities of life, begins with clothing, even before food; 丰衣足食 fēng yī zú shí means having enough to wear and enough to eat. In 衣锦还乡 yì jǐn huán xiāng, careful, 衣 is a verb and is read yì, “to dress”: to return home dressed in brocade. 项羽 Xiàng Yǔ said, according to Sima Qian, that being rich without going home was “walking at night in embroidered clothes”: nobody sees you. 穿小鞋 chuān xiǎoxié, “to make someone wear small shoes”, means victimising someone on the quiet (this is sentence 20); it is often explained by bound feet, on rather flimsy evidence. 削足适履 xuē zú shì lǚ says the opposite: to trim your foot so that it fits the shoe.

天衣无缝 tiānyī wú fèng comes from a Tang tale: a certain 郭翰 Guō Hàn was visited by the heavenly Weaver Girl and was surprised that her robe had no seam; she replied that the clothes of heaven are not made with a needle. Today it is said of a perfect plan, or of a flawless lie. The Shijing, for its part, gave the soldiers a word: in the song 无衣, “Without clothes”, warriors of Qin say to one another 岂曰无衣？与子同袍, “Who says you have nothing to wear? My cloak shall be yours” (this is sentence 24). The 同袍 tóngpáo, “same cloak”, has remained as the word for a comrade-in-arms. These lines were seen again in 2020, on boxes of aid sent from Japan.

Clothing has left words everywhere. 领 lǐng, the collar, first meant the neck; it is by the collar that you lift a garment, and the word ended up meaning “to lead”: 领导 lǐngdǎo, the boss. 领袖 lǐngxiù, “the collar and the sleeves”, the two most visible parts of a garment, means the leader; a chronicle of the Jin already said of a certain 魏舒 Wèi Shū that he was “the collar and sleeves” of men. Scholars slipped their books into their wide sleeves: 袖珍 xiùzhēn, “sleeve treasure” ⟶ pocket-sized. The Chan master handed down his robe and his bowl to his successor, 衣钵 yībō ⟶ the legacy of a school. And a daughter is the 小棉袄 xiǎo mián'ǎo, “the little padded jacket” that keeps her parents’ hearts warm (this is sentence 21). The washing has its own page (Domestic life); hats, bags and traditional clothes, from the 旗袍 to the 汉服, will have the next one.

The Analects (see Chapter 10 of the Analects of Confucius) describe the Master’s wardrobe with astonishing care: the colours he avoided, the fur matched to each winter tunic, and a long house tunic, “but the right sleeve was shorter than the left”, as Couvreur translates (to keep the hand free, the commentators explain). There we also read 必有寝衣，长一身有半, which Couvreur renders thus: “At night, he took his rest wrapped in a garment one and a half times the length of his body” (this is sentence 25). But what garment? A garment one and a half times longer than oneself looks very much like a blanket, and that is indeed how the oldest commentaries read it, unless I am mistaken. Zhu Xi moved the sentence to the paragraph on the days of abstinence, and Couvreur followed him. I won’t settle it. Nightshirt or blanket, the Master slept covered. Chinese mothers have an ally.

Click on any character on the page: its stroke order is shown stroke by stroke, with the arrow that gives the direction of the movement.