Women culture museum ‘s news condition of Shannxi Normal university recently:

1、 New Year activities in 2010 of Ford foundation and Meeting Conference on “Long March education●Rhizome Forum”was held in Beijing 798”long march room”from January 28^th to January 29^th .It was advocated by Ford fundation,planned by Long March Plan and aimed at making every project or organization know each other and producing meaningful experience.Zhong dong mei and Docter Ma Cong Min in Women culture museum and Chinese wedding dress project team took part in this activity.Docter Macongmin made a speech on a introduction about Chinese wedding dress project.The content of speech was about project condition, project difficulty , project’s Sustainable development and so on.This activity provides a good exchange stage for every project and organization supported by Ford fundation. Dandelion project,Sichuan zangculture protection project,Chinese Sexual culture museum,local custom plan, British crown prince Charitable foundation and sunshine culture foundation and so on ,more than 20 projects participated in this activity.

2、March 2th, 2010，our museum manager, National People’s Congress represent Qu ya jun came to Bei jing to participant in （the 11^th National Political Consultative Conference

3、Educational department visited our Women culture museum on March 2th p.m.,2010 accompanied by Financial department head.During visiting, they had a lot of interest in exhibit article, especially the last part “Wedding dress”. They also gave recognition about social efficiency of museum, and hope that our museum will be better and better.

4、Women culture museum welcomes Women’s Day cheerfully

The international Women’s day,which is on March 8^th annual, is set up to celebrate the woman ‘s significant contributions in the fields of economical, political and social affairs made by women. March 8^th , 1911 was the first international Women ‘s Day .With the one hundred anniversary of Women’s day, a lot of countries carried out many celebration activities on “equal rights, equal opportunities and improving together”.

5、A century Women‘s Day, Female compatriots celebrate altogether

This year is a century Women‘s Day ,our museum has become a cultural exchange stage paied close attention to by everyone.

6、March nineth a.m. ,2010 ,Education, science experts, state administration of foreign experts affairs, visit our women culture museum accompanied by vice-president Zhang jian xiang ,and think highly of our museum.

7、The performance in Women’s Day is continuous

Although Women’s Day has already finished, the passion from more and more visiting team and friends at home and abroad makes the festival atmosphere higher and higher.

Women Culture Museum of Shaanxi Normal University

My friends, what kind of expectation do you have when entering this museum? Are you coming with curiosity towards the half of human beings or concern about them? Is it a drive for finding yourself, or a need to re-establish your identity or anything else?

Women have gone as far as human civilization extends. They used to be active and shining in the twilight of early human civilization and then overshadowed in the history later for a long time.

Amidst the shining smile of the new century, women are going to emerge out of the stage.

Yes, the right time has been coming.

The excellence of this women’s world never opened to you would be beyond your imagination.

Now, let us stand in this small space and listen to the Universe to tell us the splendid truth of the mystery. And walk one step forward, let us you and me, work together for the mission.

The First Room

Her story

The following is about her story, and is also about their stories. It is very different from the stories about Kings, loves and legends. All of the women showed here are common women. Even we cannot seek ask for the names of some of them. But they lived and existed. It is significant because they pour all the hearts, loves, goodness and wisdom into their lives.

Exhibited here are some transects of 20th women’s life. Perhaps you can read a series of the hidden history from these strung segments.

The Second Room

Women’s Characters in Jiangyong

Around Jiangyong County, Hunan province of China, there is a kind of peculiar character, which records the local dialect. It is the unique character in the history which is only used and imparted among women. We call it“Women’s Characters”. Nowadays, although the successors of Women’s Characters all go out of this world one after the other, the study and dig on Women’s Characters become increasingly important. In the Women Culture Museum, there is a big collection of relics about Women’s Characters which were written or embroidered on fans, handkerchiefs and “Wedding Congratulation Letters”, including poems, letters, lyrics, ballads, riddles, and libretto of ballad-singers (translated and adapted from the Chinese Writings). In addition, exhibited here are the tools used by women when writing, everyday life articles, pictures and some written materials by the successors of Women’s Characters. These photos here were all screened in the earlier 1990s.

The Third Room

Reproductive Culture

Reproduction is very indispensable and thus becomes important in women studies. Because of the unequal social status, the reproductive culture is neglected by the main culture during the long time. Nowadays, the cultures between the east and the west or among nations are mixing more rapidly, while many old reproductive cultures are on the verge of extinction. So it becomes more and more meaningful to collect, seek, organize and research reproductive culture on different nations and different areas. Our job on this part is only a start, and exhibits are relatively less. Exhibited here are some symbolic genital worships and artworks as well as indigenous child-delivery tools and aborticide.

The Fourth Room

Women Craftwork

The world of Women Craftwork is abundant and beautiful. In this part, there is a big collection of women craftworks, such as weave goods, knit goods, embroideries and decoupages. Beside, the artworks of Ku Shulan’s paper-cuts are exhibited as a case. Ku Shulan is a native in Xunyi county, Shaanxi province and entitled as the ‘Chinese folk artist’. She showed three features in her works: (1) Paste cut pieces together. (2) Colorful decorating effects. (3) Singing while cutting. This museum has collected dozens of her masterpieces in the prime of her life, each of which is accompanied with a folk song she created.

The Fifth Room

Wedding Dress

The Jingpo nationality

The bride’s dress is the most eye—catching holiday’s best. The bride wear her hair in a bun, on which a highly tub—shaped brocade headscarf is wrapped, silver bubbles and triangle products on her shoulders and back, six round silver medals along both sides of the front of her coat, a tub-shaped dress with black、yellow and red designs on the lower part of the body, a red girdle and red and black rattan rings around the waist, and leggings on the lower legs. Women are fond of silver ornaments. The more silver ornaments a woman has, the more competent she is.

In March ,Our museum celebrated the 98th “International Women’s Day.” As an unique Women’s Culture Museum in China ,our Museum was widely concerned . Since March 2 to March 8,we received the China Zhi Gong Dang in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province Bureau of Meteorology, Safety Office of Shaanxi Province, Shaanxi Nuclear Geology Bureau, China Eastern Airlines Corporation and Qinghai Normal University and other units of visitors more than 2,000 people, Xi’an Television also made a special program for our museum.

After visiting ,visitors fully affirmed the status of women in culture and values of the museum, gave the museum’s job a high degree of evaluation, but also put forward some valuable advice to the future development of my hall .

An Eco-environmental Art Course in the Women Culture Museum Held Successfully

On the morning of December 14, 2008, a unique teaching activitie,Her Story—An Eco-environmental Art Course in the Museum,was held in the Women Culture Museum of ShaanXi Normal University successfully. That’s the first step for the museum of the university to examine how to help the education revolution. This activity was held by the Women Culture Museum, Education and Science Academy of ShaanXi Normal University, CO-held by Chinese Arts Education and Networking Academy of ShaanXi Normal University.

With the help of outstanding resources in the Women Culture Museum of ShaanXi Normal University, this programm wants to re-examine the art of classroom teaching in the ecological point of view.The course is consisted of four ingredients: Women Characters, Symbol of life, Papercutting and Wedding Clothes in China.
With elegant dancing, the students expressed Women Characters’s delicate.
With the introduction of Mud-made toys and the students’ performances, the beauty of life and the hardness of birth were showed.
In the exhibition hall of Wedding Clothes in China, the teachers and students song and danced again to express national conditions and customs.
In front of “The Bedquilt with loveletters”, Mrs Niu gave us a great performance to express the sorrow and the most helpless women under the feudal marriage.
Then everyone listened to classical music, tasted Chinese tea, enjoyed Chinese women’ wisdom. After that, related experts and scholars also held a forum to exchange ideas on this course to do an in-depth study and discussion.

The news from Shaanxi Normal University Women’s CultureMuseum:

1. We have been adopted by the Cultural Heritage assessment of Shaanxi Province.Our museum officially became secondary degree of the province , and we are applying for National Museum II now.

2.The women culture meseum of SNNU was awarded the title of “Shaanxi Women / gender research and training base” by the Women’s Federation of Shaanxi Province on September 23, 2008.

3.Since the September of 2008, Zhigang Shuai, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, other academicians, deputy directors of the Xi’an City Bureau of Education and other Leaderships have visited the museum and spoken highly of it. In addition, the teachers and students from Niu Bo University of US, Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan Cheng Kung University, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Capital Normal University, Yunnan University, Southwest University, Fuzhou University, Nanjing Normal University, Xi’an Foreign Language University and other organizations visited our museum.

4. The curator Qu Yajun, deputy curator Zhongdong Mei and Dr. Ma Congmin, investigated “the 15th session of the China Yangling agricultural high-tech innovations Expo” on-site, collected folk paper-cuts, embroidery with the rich characteristics of the non-collection.