Jiangyong County
Jiangyong County () is a county of Hunan Province, China, it is under the administration of Yongzhou prefecture-level City.
Located on the south margin of the province, it is bordered on the west by Guangxi. The county is bordered to the northea ...
,
Hunan
Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi to ...
province, was known as the last proficient speaker and writer of
Nüshu script
Nüshu () is a syllabic script derived from Chinese characters that was used exclusively among women in Jiangyong County in Hunan province of southern China.Proposatext Nüshu
Nüshu () is a syllabic script derived from Chinese characters that was used exclusively among women in Jiangyong County in Hunan province of southern China.Proposatext Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
in 1995. Her works about Nüshu have been collected by Zhao Liming, a professor of
Tsinghua University
Tsinghua University (; abbreviation, abbr. THU) is a National university, national Public university, public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Minis ...
and they were published in 2004. Jiangyong County offered Yang's living expenses and employed a maid to take care of her daily life with the purpose of rescuing and preserving Nüshu.
Biography
During her childhood, Yang Huanyi learned some traditional medical practices from her grandmother and specialized in curing pediatric
measles
Measles is a highly contagious infectious disease caused by measles virus. Symptoms usually develop 10–12 days after exposure to an infected person and last 7–10 days. Initial symptoms typically include fever, often greater than , cough, ...
. Her father Yang Shiyang was an open-minded country doctor. Considering that people who had studied Nüshu were more civilized and well-educated, he encouraged Yang Huanyi to learn it. At that time, one needed to pay to study Nüshu, so a fee had to be paid for learning every new word. Poor as she was, Yang never gave up learning; she earned money by working part-time jobs as well as picking beans and peanuts for others. "I was so happy first to learn how to sing the songs and then how to write," Yang recalled.
At the age of twenty-two, she married a man who was two years older than she, as her parents demanded. After they had been married three months, her husband was bitten by a poisonous snake and died. Two years later, she remarried He Yuancun, who was a compulsive gambler. He was accustomed to leaving home and gambling day and night, taking no interest in his family's affairs and leaving everything to Yang Huanyi. Every time he gambled away his money, he would sell pigs and
millet
Millets () are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most species generally referred to as millets belong to the tribe Paniceae, but some millets al ...
to pay back the debt. As a result, Yang's family was deeply indebted and had to struggle against poverty. Although Yang altogether had eight children, only two sons and one daughter survived infancy for lack of cure and medicines and her second husband died later. Raising three children alone was difficult, and she would seek solace and distraction by writing and chanting Nüshu during her spare time.
At that time, most females were illiterate and considered the property of men. Women who learned Nüshu could share their feelings and experiences with other women in their own language. In 2002 Yang told the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'', "When I learned Nüshu, it was meant to exchange our thoughts and letters with friends and sisters. We wrote what was in our hearts and our true feelings."
Visit to Beijing
In 1995, she attended the Fourth World Conference on Women in
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
. This was the first time that Yang traveled far from her home and the first time the 86-year-old woman got on a train. She was extremely excited all the way, repeating that taking a train was comfortable because it was fast and steady. In this international conference, Ji Xianlin, Zhou Youguang, Liu Naihe, and other prominent academic scholars were also present. Yang, wrote and sang Nüshu, thoroughly presenting its charm as well as the wisdom and creativity of oriental working women to the conferees.
When Yang Huanyi was in Beijing, she paid a visit to the Summer Palace, went to the Tiananmen Gate and came to the Memorial Hall of Chairman
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...
. To look at her Hunan fellow-townsman had been the first thing Yang wanted to do after she arrived in the capital.
About her age
The age of Yang is not exactly known. When a journalist of the
Xinhua News Agency
Xinhua News Agency (English pronunciation: )J. C. Wells: Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, 3rd ed., for both British and American English, or New China News Agency, is the official state news agency of the People's Republic of China. Xinhua ...
interviewed Yang at her home in 2002, Yang said that she was ninety-four years old. By that count, she was 96 when she died in 2004. However, on the other side, her age was recorded officially as 98 by
Jiangyong County
Jiangyong County () is a county of Hunan Province, China, it is under the administration of Yongzhou prefecture-level City.
Located on the south margin of the province, it is bordered on the west by Guangxi. The county is bordered to the northea ...
.
Nüshu
Nüshu () is a syllabic script derived from Chinese characters that was used exclusively among women in Jiangyong County in Hunan province of southern China.Proposatext Nüshu
Nüshu () is a syllabic script derived from Chinese characters that was used exclusively among women in Jiangyong County in Hunan province of southern China.Proposatext cultural heritage
Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by soci ...
Nüshu.
Additionally, Yang's death marks the disappearance of the female-specific language, which provides a method for women to share their innermost feelings through codes incomprehensible to men. Scholars once believed:" Yang is the last woman alive who grew up with nushu as a vital part of her girlhood and adult life, the sole survivor of a tradition that will die when she does." Nowadays, Yang's descendants are quite unfamiliar with Nüshu.
Works
In 1990, Professor Zhao Liming, from
Tsinghua University
Tsinghua University (; abbreviation, abbr. THU) is a National university, national Public university, public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Minis ...
, went to
Jiangyong County
Jiangyong County () is a county of Hunan Province, China, it is under the administration of Yongzhou prefecture-level City.
Located on the south margin of the province, it is bordered on the west by Guangxi. The county is bordered to the northea ...
to conduct research on
Nüshu
Nüshu () is a syllabic script derived from Chinese characters that was used exclusively among women in Jiangyong County in Hunan province of southern China.Proposatext Chinese characters
Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji' ...
, her works were free from Chinese characters' interference and this makes them more original to Nüshu. On the other hand,