追漢服的小萬姑娘

Wan Jie and her daughter Shi Yue were appreciating flowers wearing parent-kid Hanfu.

　　Hanfu,meaning the costume of Han Chinese,mainly features loose robe with large sleeves and lacing covering up the right lapel.According to the report by Oriental Outlook in March 2022,Chengdu is the"City of Hanfu in China".In the downtown area of Chengdu,there are over 20 thousand"tongpaos",mainly young people between 15 and 35,making Chengdu the city with most population of Hanfu in China and rank top nationwide in the number of Hanfu shops and Hanfu brands as well as in the sales volume.

　　Chengdu's advanced Hanfu circle attracts a large number of Hanfu lovers.Lady Wan,a Hanfu blogger,was one of them.Lady Wan,real name Wan Jie,was a demobilized post-1995 female soldier who has established a photography studio with her friends.At the beginning of 2018,when she was making a video,she came into contact with Hanfu.The video got widely spread and praised by net users,which also sparkled her interest in Hanfu.

　　In 2018,Lady Xiaowan came to Chengdu,worn Hanfu and walked down the street.She found that there were many other"tongpaos"wearing Hanfu among the pedestrians,which arouses her senses of fitting and belonging."Walking down the street wearing Hanfu makes others be envious of,rather than feel strange with you."Immediately,she decided to start her business in Chengdu.

　　In Wan Jie's opinion,Hanfu is a costume that also carries profound traditional culture.On every traditional festival,"tongpaos"would hold lively and large-scaled Hanfu activities,such as lantern viewing on Lantern Festival,offering sacrifice to Qu Yuan on Dragon Boat Festival,blind date on Qixi Festival,moon worshipping on Mid-Autumn Festival,etc.Wan Jie also came up with an idea to disseminate Hanfu culture through short videos.She crammed up knowledge about Hanfu,by viewing and learning from online forums and information material and professional literature and books.She also read page by page the literature,like Yuan Jieying's A History of Chinese Costumes of Dynasties and Shen Congwen's A Research on Chinese Ancient Costume.After fully getting good grasp of the knowledge,she started tofilm short videos to display the beauty of Hanfu,popularize knowledge about Hanfu and started her career as a Hanfu blogger.Sofar,she already has had over 5 million fans.Many would leave her comments like"I started to fall in love with Hanfu because of Lady Xiaowan".She also derive a sense of achievement and the motivation to move ahead from these comments.

Wan Jie was taking photos of the display of Hanfu.

　　In 2019,Wan Jie became a mother.After the birth of her daughter,her fans commented that they looked forward to seeing Lady Xiaowan and her daughter together wear Hanfu.She sought for the Hanfu for babies online and offline,but never to find it."Since no one is currently making any baby Hanfu,I should cultivate this field where no one has set foot on yet."After that,she began to go on simultanously to make Hanfu both for adults and babies.

　　From creating short videos to designing and making Hanfu,Wan Jie was confronted with entirely new challenges.Original design,material selection,template making,and embroidery.Each procedure was not easy at all."There were so many uncertainties in each procedure,and I had to have a try one by one,"said Wan Jie.The two year military service has developed her courage,perseverance and persistence.In face of hardship,she would attempt to find ways to overcome it rather than escaping or getting afraid.

　　In the early stage of her business,Wan Jie nearly had n o vacation throughout the year,and she committed herself fully to Hanfu,learning it as she went along.As she and her daughter put on the first set of parent-kid Hanfu she made,she felt full of sense of achievement which immediately cleared away her long-time tiredness.The short videos that she made together with her daughter also captured a bunch of young-mother fans.

　　In order to truly integrate Hanfu into public life,Wan Jie also explores the design of stylized Hanfu,in addition to making the Hanfu that complies with the traditional forms.While absorbing the traditional culture,the Hanfu is also made according to modern aesthetics,with improvement in design and fabric.

　　In 2020,after COVID-19 outbreak,Wan Jie led her team in designing a Hanfu named"Vitality",which is a long gown that has vertical collar and large lapel,cappa and horse-face skirt,with embroidery patterns of Wuhan landmarks,Yellow Crane Tower,cherry blossoms,and swallows,etc.on the gown."We wish to depict Wuhan in lively spring and full of vitality through this Hanfu,so as to deliver positive energy to the society,"she said.

　　In the meantime,Wan Jie never stopped creating new short videos.She tried to combine Hanfu with stories,costume play and cultural tourism and explored the way to integrate Hanfu with modern life,thereby making improvement on the Hanfu according to netizens'feedback.Today,her team has expanded to around 100 members,while at first,she worked alone.

　　On the road of entrepreneurship,Wan Jie also benefited from Chengdu's"Talent Introduction Program",from which she received a ton of help.In recent years,Chengdu consistently enhanced policy innovation,attracted talent,especially young ones,created an environment suitable for both business and living,and established an innovative platform to stimulate the vitality of talent and assist young people with pursuing their dreams here in Chengdu.

Wan Jie and her daughter Shi Yue were on journey wearing parent-kid Hanfu.

　　Young people are the main force and storm troops in promoting economic and social development,technological innovation,and rural revitalization.Therefore,it's critical to provide large support for young people's innovation and entrepreneurship.In the past few years,the Chengdu Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League released measures after learning about the current situation and needs of young people's innovation and entrepreneurship in an in-depth way to provide a great platform for those young people.It's shown in the Youth Venture Urban Vitality Report(2021)that Chengdu ranks second nationwide in terms of the city that young entrepreneurs wish to start in.Chengdu

　　is gradually becoming the new choice for youth entrepreneurship.

　　What's more,Chengdu also provides support for veterans,such as the tax deduction program,which also helped Wan Jie a lot.In 2021,she participated in the 2nd Sichuan Veterans Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition and won the third prize.She said that this contest made more people see veterans'efforts and process of entrepreneurship,and also encouraged them to move forward nonstop and helped them acquire resources.

　　That's how Wan Jie keeps advancing on the road to her dream with the support of governments and the encouragement provided by the policies.This May,the Chengdu Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League and the Chengdu Youth Federation granted her"Chengdu Youth May 4th Medal".

　　Looking back on her experience,Wan Jie said she was lucky to catch up to the boost of Internet-based economy at the beginning of her business,and Chengdu provided her with the necessary geographic and cultural conditions."Chengdu puts great stress on the heritage and innovation of traditional culture,which helps our entrepreneurship with policy support and assistance.Moreover,Chengdu is a city full of talent and fashionable young lives.Most members of our team are post-90s and post-95.They are very lively."

　　Speaking of the future,Wan Jie said in an assertive tone that she,as a new media entrepreneur of traditional culture,will spread Chinese excellent traditional culture with Hanfu as the carrier.Nowadays,she and her team are exploring the field of cross-border e-commerce,wishing to export their products as well as the culture and realize the vision of"turning classics into fashion and making national culture global".

　　"In the past,I wore millitary uniform to guard our homeland.Now,I wear Hanfu to inherite and carry forward Chinese culture.I'm pretty proud of myself,"said Wan Jie.