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when the only movie that li bingbing and jun ji-hyun collaborated on was released, people praised it as bold enough.

in "snow flower and the secret fan", two beauties play two different roles, depicting the gentle and soft friendship between chinese women of two different eras.

some people say this is a very bold "lesbian" movie.

just because of the deleted scene, which was the most insignificant kiss between two women in hunan, china in the early nineteenth century.

the movie didn’t receive high ratings back then, and because it was too shallow, it didn’t cause much of a stir.

but it brought hunan jiangyong women's script to the people.

director feng dui read the novel of the same name of this movie.

this inspired her to make a documentary only about women and women's writing.

——the whisperer.

of course, there are no kissing scenes, no lesbian tendencies, and only one language is spoken.

a kind of encrypted text created by women——women's script.

it originated fromjiangyong county, hunan province, is the only county in the world where the written language is passed down to females but not males.

the bodies and souls of women in the old society were imprisoned.

in this encrypted text, the pain of life is conveyed in an extremely beautiful way.

just like in the novel, in the 1930s, two sisters who had been sworn sisters since childhood accompanied each other through marriage, widowhood, and war.

they used nüshu, with poems as lyrics, and sang slowly.

the girls confide in each other, encourage each other, and give each other the strength to live.

august 31st.

the film that feng du spent three years shooting was finally released nationwide.

"the whisperer" is the first documentary about women's script in china.

it was shortlisted for the oscars last year and was also reported by overseas media such as the bbc and the guardian.

the british film institute calls it“one of the most beautiful and transformative documentaries of the year.”

it brought the world's attention back to that mountain village in hunan.

in winter, everything in southern hunan is silent and bleak. in the extremely cold tone, the mountains are not high and are gloomy, and the fields are bare with yellow dry grass.

the women were washing clothes by the river and chatting about something.

then, the author tells in a plain and detailed manner the story of the struggles and power of change of the times contained in the destinies of the three women intertwined by nüshu.

today we would like to recommend this documentary, highly recommended.

it was not because of how much attention it received, nor because nushu began to become a cultural symbol, that it was pushed onto the commercial battlefield.

but because it returns to women themselves.

a young inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage of nüshu in jiangyonghu xin, one is the last natural heir of nüshu who is oldhe yanxin, and a modern woman who lives in shanghai and achieves self-consistency because of her love for nüshu cultureyearning。

in this era, three girls rediscover the soul of nüshu and convey its spiritual core.

as the director said:“using nüshu as a starting point, we can tell the gender role dilemmas faced by contemporary women in the workplace, family and life, and create a force for change.”

yes, facing up to the plight of women is truly “bold”.

01

jiangyong women's script,

a bitter love letter of a woman's life.

the secrets of each woman are circulating in the village.

for hundreds of years, people have bound their feet, stayed at home, and burned their entire lives for a home that was once a stranger to them.

in order to give each other hope to survive, the women of jiangyong created their own nushu.

it was discovered by chance.

1960s.

a woman whose leg was broken by a train asked the police for help, but she spoke neither yao nor xiang dialect, so no one understood her.

in a desperate situation, she wrote something, which no one had ever seen before, and the woman was even suspected of being a spy.

it was not until 1982 that scholars came to hunan and discovered this mysterious writing.

the local women spread the word.the only female-written language in the world - nüshu.

countless literary works have similar shadows.

in the face of reality, there is first cruel expression, and then there is the painful literature that emerges.

most girls at that time got married early and bore all the disciplines imposed on women by feudal society.

she takes care of her husband and children, and accepts everything that comes her way. she has no self and no soul space, just like a tightly wrapped, twisted foot.

the girls at that time, among their fellow women, were trying hard to find resonance and spiritual sustenance.

they retained the kindness and gentleness of women, wrote poems and sang songs, and inscribed a language that outsiders could not understand on rough paper, folding fans, and handkerchiefs.

the words are densely packed, and they are like weeping songs. they are as slender as willow branches, smart and elegant, very delicate, and are also called "ant words".

the way girls pass on nüshu is both sad and sacred.

the nüshu script was placed on the shrine of the niangniang temple. if a girl wanted to learn it, she would go to the niangniang temple, make a wish, burn incense, and then reverently take a copy of the nüshu script.

after learning, put it back quietly and give it to the next one.

under the witness of gods and under the eyes of men, they shared knowledge and expressed emotions.

in fact, the development of nüshu is also related to the local customs of jiangyong, hunan.

good sisters born in the same year will become sworn brothers and be called "lao tong" (male sworn brothers are called "lao geng").

once sworn sisters become sworn sisters, they will frequently communicate with each other, writing letters and greetings in women's script.

after the death of each nüshu inheritor, her nüshu works will be burned and buried with the deceased.

it can be understood as a diary or as an autobiography, but misery is always a reflection of their lives.

later, this kind of tragic literature, which was regarded as sad, slowly disappeared with the times.

jiangyong county, hunan province,it is located on the southern border of hunan, between dupangling mountain and mengzhuling mountain.

with winding rivers and crisscrossing mountains, it is a cultural border area where three provinces meet.

remote, but prosperous.

in recent years, this small county, which has attracted worldwide attention for nüshu, has attracted many cultural scholars to visit and has become a kind of scene in the nüshu museum.

hu xin is still a little confused and lonely.

as the youngest inheritor of nüshu in the village, she sometimes sits at the reception desk at the door, staring blankly alone, sighing that this fate is hard to find.

there are four girls in the family. in the village, this family is looked down upon because there are more girls than girls.

nushu sings: the red rooster's tail flutters / a three-year-old girl can sing / it's not my parents who taught me / i'm smart on my own

hu xin gave herself strength while writing nüshu.it doesn’t matter if others look down on us, as long as we look up to ourselves.”

hu xin's good sister is an old lady.he yanxin.

the scene that moved me the most in the film was when hu xin came to beijing and chatted about love and troubles with a good friend on the terrace of a shopping mall.

then she sang the new women's script taught by he yanxin to the sisters around her.

"the towel of the superior is five feet long/come on..." he choked with tears in his eyes.

"whenever i sing, i think of her," and i choked up for this woman's life.

when facing the old lady, hu xin always called her he yanxin, he yanxin, like a best friend.

"my husband died in the 1990s, and i raised several children by myself. i worked hard for half my life, and finally reached the best time of my life, but it also came to the end of my life."

she sighed, felt distressed, and began to grieve. this is probably the unique empathy between women.

the sun was about to set, she was getting older, and she just wanted to... hu xin couldn't bear to think about it.

he yanxin is one of the few remaining natural inheritors of nüshu in the village.

as hu xin's teacher, she told many stories about the traditional nüshu.

he yanxin has been exposed to nüshu since her grandmother's generation. although the little girl did not understand this strange writing, she followed suit and wrote.

looking at my sisters and their families, i feel sad and cry as i write.

i write about worries, expectations, and thoughts, but i rarely write about the relationship between husband and wife.

he yanxin explained to hu xin: "there was no such thing as a husband-wife relationship at that time. you just had to listen to the man. if the man ignored you, you couldn't survive."

"before liberation, some brothers looked the same. when a woman brought foot-washing water to the younger man, the man would say i was the older man... at that time, the woman didn't dare to look up, and rarely looked up at the man. after getting married, she had to do the work of carrying feces and urine, so she had no place to vent her anger and was always suffering."

so there is nüshu——

"an 18-year-old girl and a 3-year-old boy, i wash her feet and carry her to bed at night, and she wants to be fed in the middle of the night. i am a husband, not a mother."

the wedding car passed through the alley, under the gray bricks and white tiles and the sky full of colorful ribbons, the man happily married the woman and took her home.

02

modern "women's book"

trapped in a new destiny.

even if nushu is seen by the world, hu xin is still confused about where her future lies.

she writes in an elegant and beautiful female script, which is sometimes displayed in museums and sometimes at cultural exhibitions in beijing, shanghai and macau.

men don’t understand. as some comments under the documentary said, the horror elements in this film still come from a top-down male perspective.

hu xin is dignified and elegant, and his handwriting exudes a chivalrous spirit.

but a group of men walked in, smiling: beautiful calligraphers.

then he joked with hu xin: can we make friends? hu xin smiled awkwardly... the man's seven or eight-year-old son came over and continued half-impatiently and half-jokingly: go away! dad is making friends.

another time was at a cultural exchange exhibition in macau.

a man came over to lecture her, saying that she didn't know how to display marketing, she only knew how to write. the next man came over and asked why she had such small words on such a large piece of paper. the next "emperor" passed by, looked at it, and left.

hu xin didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

at the male-dominated conference, the main topic was that the business of women's books must be developed, otherwise it would be difficult for women's books to survive. we must engage in commercial collaborations, cross-border cooperation, make it bigger and stronger, and explore its commercial value.

a joint venture with kfc. a professional freckle removal shop had nüshu characters on its advertising sign. the first nüshu-themed mobile phone had a press conference.

nüshu even appears on men's clothing. male designers say that this expresses women's love and care for men.

the men in the film don’t understand nüshu. this is the first dilemma.

the second dilemma comes from women themselves.

as soon as simu appeared on stage, she was radiant. she was a female singer, standing on the stage with confidence.

simu, who lives in shanghai, has many hobbies. in addition to singing coloratura and playing the piano, she can also play the guqin and loves reading. in particular, she loves women's writing.

she met a man. not long after they met, she wrote a letter to him in nüshu.

6 paragraphs, 72 words, let the man understand it in 7 days. the man is very smart and translated it in just one day.

simu thought she had found true love. she fell deeply in love and even discussed marriage.

the man wants to take simu back to his hometown and start to remind her at the dinner table not to do nothing, even just serve the dishes, and to be "sensible".

simu was indeed a decent and sensible person, but for a woman who was about to become a member of this family, something started to feel wrong.

just after finishing the meal, the man brought a bowl of black medicine and said it was for having a baby.

the two of them began to discuss their married life in the yard.

every plan for the future is gradually wiping out the light of longing that already exists. career and family must be balanced. children, house, and future all belong to one family and one man.

as for hobbies, you should consider the situation and sacrifice if you can, and give up as soon as possible if you can.

for example, nüshu.

afterwards, the man never showed up again.

simu still lives her colorful and wonderful life. she sings, loves music, loves women's books, and loves playing the piano...

he yanxin, an 80-year-old woman with bound feet, sometimes says that she only has a few years left to live. decades, this life, is like a dream.

she once disdained to talk about anything about nushu in front of the world. she tried to take this secret that belonged only to girls away forever.

later, she met hu xin, who was enthusiastic, kind and straightforward.

she was willing to open herself up and teach her everything.

she understood that this girl, who could be her granddaughter, also had a lot of pain and difficulties in her heart.

this is a kind of relay between the nüshu of the old era and the nüshu of the new era.

a kind, beautiful relay that gives people strength.

he yanxin said that in the past women's writing was known only to the women themselves and was used to express grievances.

the current nüshu is not like that. it is open to the public and people even sing and dance at the same time.

"whether women's writing is good or not now has nothing to do with our time."

03

this era,

do we still need women's writing?

hu xin, there is a secret base.

she said mysteriously that she would take everyone to her base, a place where she could relax.

it was a studio with bookshelves and a tea room, where hu xin often wrote and studied nushu.

sometimes, i would come here with my sisters to drink tea, and we would chat about some intimate topics and share our troubles.

in a sense, this is a kind of "three-dimensional women's writing".

it still serves as a medium for women to comfort each other and find a little value in their own existence.

in a phone call to her family, when simu faced the emotional issues her mother brought up, she said, i'm single and i'm going with the flow.

it was obvious that the man had been kicked out of simu's life.

she chose to stick to what she loved and what made her shine.

the mother on the other end of the phone expressed her understanding to her daughter.

in the words of her time, women hold up half the sky, and women should shoulder the responsibility of holding up the feminine half.

she said that her father used to support eight people in the mine, and after gender equality was achieved, everyone had to go out to work.

later, she became a doctor. she wore a white coat and stood with her head held high as she took photos in front of the county hospital.

he said proudly, "i am no worse than others."

in words, what the mother brings to people’s longing is also a feminine spirit of self-reliance and self-improvement.

isn’t this also a kind of unwritten “women’s writing”?

like simu and hu xin, they both had concerns about what will happen to nüshu in this era and in the future.

being hotly discussed, being seen, and being pushed forward by the booming business, it seems like it is losing something.

finally, longing is sought within the heart.

she published nüshu cultural creations and wrote equality and happiness on fans. she worked as a tour guide and wrote a reply letter in nüshu next to the nüshu of her predecessors.

the letters that transcend time, space, life and death use nüshu to communicate across the ages.

simu didn't want them to stay in the museum and be sealed away in the distant history. she became the "spokesperson" of nüshu.

back home, simu teaches her mother how to write nüshu, and her father serves as her assistant

paste nushu on door frames and walk on the streets, and you will see more and more women picking up brushes and writing nushu.

hu xin followed he yanxin back to an old house.

it's going to collapse. the building is empty.

the old man recalled the scene when a group of girls wrote women's script and sang together here.

"my grandmother wrote women's books on my hand and i taught a group of girls."

she recalled many past events and the many women's books she recited with her sisters.

so beautiful and sad——

spring beauty emei moon/i really want to say something to you

and so proudly, praising myself——

a three-year-old girl can sing. it's not my parents who taught me. it's my own cleverness.

they admire each other——

three or four surnames come to swear brotherhood / beautiful trees like flowers come to share the garden / a thousand miles of lakes come to share the water / hundreds of birds sing in the trees for thousands of miles

there is also great passion——

a good woman wins the hearts of thousands of people/a good horse wins the rides of ten thousand people/i have crossed many mountains and ridges/i have crossed many rivers and streams/it has been a long journey/it is nice to enjoy the coolness under the green pine trees

hu xin wrote a letter to he yanxin.

with best wishes:

pick up the pen to write on the paper/always thinking about my aunt/living a carefree life (living...

just like what the director wants to express in the film, women should not live in a peaceful life, but should live in a sunny, transparent and happy life...

today, people can regard such beautiful written expressions as an art.

but for them at that time, creating nüshu was never born for art.

it is for myself, for life, and for the women who are not seen and understood.

finally, back to that question.

of course, this era needs women's writing.

it represents all the spirit and strength of women who were once oppressed and suppressed.

this power will illuminate future generations and people of the new era.

according to each of them who is facing the conflict between self-value, social value and family value.

i hope girls can come out of their deeply buried roles.

take a new look at how to make choices.

whatever you choose is fine.

just live your life well.