Shaanxi Normal University New Campus has (possibly) the only women’s museum in all of China.  For our Chinese literature class, our professor planned on giving us a tour of the museum to compliment our section on Chinese women writers.

I went to the new campus to get my own tour of the museum.  It was quite the experience!

My tour guide was a Chinese student so she explained everything in Chinese (which I actually understood)!  Some Chinese women created a “women’s language.”  There are slightly altered Chinese characters that were a part of a written language that only Chinese women could understand.  As you can see from the picture above, it is characterized by the extreme slant of the writing.

There was also a lot of interesting artifacts in the museum that covered early to modern Chinese women’s history, or “her”story.

This is a pillow with a hole in it for a woman’s ear.  You know, in case your husband calls you in the middle of the night you can get up right away!

Women also perfected decorating steamed bread.  The museum had a whole display case filled with different shaped bread decorated to look like a dragon or a fish.  At first, I thought the bread was a cake.  Maybe when I return home I’ll give it a try!

The very best part of the museum was the final room.  Shaanxi Normal University was lucky enough to gather traditional wedding dresses from all over the province.  It was truly amazing to see all the different designs and learn about the reasons behind why brides wore certain styles.

This white dress was particularly interesting.  Women get married and buried in this dress.  My tour guide told me the woman who donated this dress did get married in it but gave up the opportunity to be buried in it.  It is very rare to have this kind of dress in a museum and I think it is by far my favorite.

Although I wasn’t able to join my class on the trip, I’m glad I made time to go to the new campus to see this quaint but amazing museum.