Then & Now | History of the cheongsam, why Suzie Wong and Hong Kong elite girls’ schools killed it, and politicians who habitually wore one
- First popularised in 1920s Shanghai, cheongsam became wildly popular across the Chinese world but have largely vanished into the pages of history
- After Suzie Wong, few upper-middle-class women wanted to dress like a ‘waterfront harlot’, while many who wore it as school uniform vowed never to do so again
In these sadly polarised, hypersensitive times, racial nationalism’s uglier character traits are often stoked by those in power as convenient diversions from real issues such as double-digit youth unemployment, collapsing property markets, bankrupted municipalities and hollowed-out middle-class wealth.
The population of an entire nation can seemingly have their feelings wounded at the slightest prod, especially when “foreign forces” are supposedly responsible, and profound cultural sensitivities are considered to have been insulted and mocked.
In these febrile times, the mere choice of a shirt, dress or other combination of inherently harmless garments, when worn in public by those considered unentitled to do so, in particular foreigners, can ignite irrational responses from persons determined to be offended.
That most stereotypically Chinese of garments – though actually Manchu in origin – the cheongsam provides an illustrative example.
Literally a “long shirt”, cheongsam – thanks to popular novels and old films – are a local sight many overseas visitors to Hong Kong somehow still expect to see. But, like bat-winged sailing junks, cheongsam-clad Hong Kong Chinese women, once commonplace, have largely vanished into the pages of illustrated history books.
