The Cool Story of Chinese Fans
The Cool Story of Chinese Fans “Shaken in hand and a cool breeze embraces you,” this is one description of the cooling power of the delicate Chinese fan. The history of Chinese fan can be dated to over 3,000 years ago, around the Shang Dynasty (C.16th-11th BC). The first type of fan, known as Shanhan, was tied to a horse-drawn carriage to shut out the strong sunshine and shelter the passengers from the rainfall. The Shanhan was a bit like today’s umbrella. Later this Shanhan became a long-handled fan made of thin and tough silk or birds’ feathers, called a zhangshan fan, which was mainly used by the emperor’s honour guard as decoration. In fact, the fan was not used to help cool people until the Zhou Dynasty, more than 2,000 years ago. At that time, fan was usually made of feathers and called “feather fan,” which was only popular among the noble class. The fan was popularized during the Han Dynasty (206BC-AD220) when the simple bamboo fan and the cattail-leaf fan were inven