Rust Belt Sinologist

Musings on history, thought, film, and culture. Will post poetry and travel writings.

[rustbeltsinologist]

08-23-2025

Poetry helps me,  To free my soul, Even in a place like this. The summer’s winding down now.  Pure bliss(?).

[rustbeltsinologist]

05-10: David Raymond

Who is David Raymond? He comes from the streets of Michigan– A booming town on the edge of nothingland. Lakes and rivers are never too far away. Gimme a Vernors for my stomach ache.

[rustbeltsinologist]

Video games can inspire poetry, too!

04-08-2026: Poem after completing God of War: Ragnarok

Father and son, Traverse the nine realms, It’s cold in Midgard,  And warm in others.  Ragnarok approaches,  This Thor is fat, But his Odin is small.

[rustbeltsinologist]

02-28-2026: After Finishing A Book Review

Relief, Five Hundred Pages of articles and struggle hanging over my head Misery– make it end.  Gladness at least. Gotta edit it again later…

[rustbeltsinologist]

04/08/2026: Keeping up with Goals

This would be the twelfth poem,  But I think I’ll do more.  Check off the list,  To satisfy my senses.  Prose and then blogging,  You know it’s for mensches. 

[rustbeltsinologist]

04/08/2026: A Poem for Spring

Springtime weather is here, Warmth and sunshine, Mixed with showers and thunders. Little black cat hides under the blanket, When it goes boom outside.  I pet her on the back, And tell her it’s okay.  Vitamins to the flowers.

[rustbeltsinologist]

03/23/2026: A poem for my friend in the hospital

He’s all the way over there,  In Korea All by himself, But at least his brother is there now. I feel helpless,  Stuck over here,  He’s stuck over there,  He can’t move, My poor old friend.  Stuck and unable to move, In pain.  Can’t the guy catch a break?  I’ll write this down for him. 

[rustbeltsinologist]

01-12-2026: Another U Chicago poem

There were murals on the walls– Inside the gothic castles that adorned this campus towering to the sky. The lake’s nearby. 

[rustbeltsinologist]

University of Chicago Haiku

Gothic structures brood, Midwestern glass shimmers too. Smaller than I thought.

[rustbeltsinologist]

01-01-2025: It’s the New Year, Afterall

No diets in 2025.  Predicting it all. The hue. 

[rustbeltsinologist]

Haiku 01/26/2026

Emotion safety– Tell me I’m wrong with your eyes. Painful love, and beer.

[rustbeltsinologist]

A poem on the occasion of launching a new blog

Jump up a tree, Big green plants surrounding me, Jungle feelings in Midwestern plains.

There’s an animal show this weekend here– Maybe I’ll go. Either way a poem now: Calmly shout.

[sixpenceee]

From 1918. Over 100 years ago they figured this out.

[rustbeltsinologist]

Love this one.

[audreydoeskaren]

Hi, I just recently found your blog shortly after starting on some recent Chinese period dramas (The Story of Minglan and, more recently, The Sword and the Brocade, which I'm watching currently because I happened across it on Amazon.) With western period drama I've gotten pretty conversant with picking out what is and isn't historically authentic re: costumes, so I'm looking at the costumes in the Sword and the Brocade (which I believe is set in the Mid-Ming Dynasty) trying to parse out what reads as authentic without really knowing what I'm looking for. Do you have any pointers for recognizing do's and don'ts for middle Era Ming fashion? Or any tips for reliable resources?

Hi, I think it’s a great idea to list some things to look out for in historical accuracy instead of picking out the inaccuracies individually! 授人以鱼不如授人以渔 like people say. I'll use The Sword and the Brocade as an example, since it seems like that while their costumes are not especially accurate, the designer was at least informed by history and not just using standard guzhuang outfits. Apparently the original novel had a fantasy setting but the tv adaptation set it in the mid Ming, particularly the Jiajing era (1521-67). I’m not a professional and these are just some tips from an enthusiast.

4 ways to spot if a period drama set in the Ming has accurate costuming

1. Cut and silhouette

This is the most efficient way to tell if the costumes are historical or not. If you spot any Western construction methods on upper garments, such as darts, tucks, insertion sleeves and princess seams, it's an immediate red flag that historical accuracy is not to be expected. Even if no Western construction methods were used, if the clothes are generally very tight fitting and the sleeves are very short, again, not historically accurate. Most Chinese clothing prior to the 1910s were extremely big and roomy, completely concealing the wearer’s figure. On top of that, people would always wear layers of undergarments that further emphasized the fullness of their outer garments. If you get the feeling that the actors and actresses are drowning in their huge robes and you cannot see their body shapes at all, the costumes are on the right track.

Source

The Sword and the Brocade. These tops are way too skimpy. Coupled with how thin the actresses are, they look nothing like Ming clothing, especially that of this era.

Source

Ming portrait from maybe around the same time as the show’s setting.

2. Sleeve length

Most clothing worn by middle or upper class people in the Ming would have sleeves that were very long, longer than the wearer’s arms. This means that when people held up their hands in front of their stomach (a really common way for people to stand in period dramas), the cuffs of the two sleeves are supposed to connect and not show any gaps. Even in time periods when the sleeves were relatively form fitting and short, they would still be much looser and longer than a "tight fitting sleeve" in the contemporary sense.

Source

In this shot you can see that the sleeves end at their hands and form a /\ shaped gap when the arms are bent. Historically, the sleeves would be long and big enough to not have the gap, especially for more ceremonial clothing.

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Portrait of woman wearing long sleeves. The ends of the sleeves are shaped like | instead of /\, it that makes any sense, and there are visibly more folds on her arms because the sleeves are so long.

3. Hairstyles

If any grownup characters have their hair loose in a period drama, it’s an immediate sign that the wardrobes isn’t historically accurate. All adult women in the Ming would have their hair up in an updo or a headpiece like the 狄髻 diji depending on the era, instead of wearing them loose. Any dangling braids or locks of hair aren’t acceptable either. Male characters going about in loose hair or an exposed bun is also inaccurate, since it was essential for grown men to tie their hair into a bun and then wear the 网巾 wangjin hairnet and hats or turbans. 

Source

The hairstyling in this show isn’t abysmal, at least they didn’t use any loose flowing hair, though it isn’t 100% accurate either. I’m not well versed with women’s hairstyles of this period at all, but I think the way they styled the female characters’ hair in this show looks a bit, uh, Qianlong era, or even like Mei Lanfang’s guzhuang hairstyles.

Source

Diji from vaguely around the same era.

4. Fabrics and patterns

In the Ming Dynasty, most fashionable fabrics had woven, brocaded patterns, which could be either gold (织金 zhijin or gold brocade) or of the same color as the fabric (暗纹 anwen or hidden patterns). Gold brocade would usually only be used in certain specific styles, such as for 补子 buzi (square badge) or 云肩通袖 yunjiantongxiu (cloud collar and sleeves) designs for robes, and 裙襕 qunlan (horizontal strips) for skirts. Hidden patterns have a shimmering texture and usually consisted of small patterns repeated throughout the garment. Embroidery did not become popular until the late 16th and early 17th century, even then it wasn’t used as commonly as in Qing Dynasty or 20th century fashion. For Ming clothing, the only acceptable use of embroidery should be on things like Wanli era collar trims (眉子 meizi) or Tainqi/Chongzhen era skirts. If you see any clothes in Ming Dynasty dramas using large areas of embroidery or weird placement of embroidered patterns that did not adhere to buzi or yunjiantongxiu designs, it’s a sign that the costumes aren’t historically accurate. For the Jiajing era specifically, I think robes with buzi were very popular.

Source

Not only did they use embroidery and no hidden patterns, the placement of the embroidery is also a bit strange; I’ve never seen sleeves trimmed like that, and the roundel shape for womenswear was definitely more of an 18th century (Qing Dynasty) thing.

Source

Closeup of Chenghua era painting showing women in robes with yunjiantongxiu patterns.

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Wanli era robe with buzi.

Where to find reliable information

I don’t know of any Chinese fashion history blogger who specifically does costume reviews for Ming Dynasty dramas, but if you are interested in historically accurate Ming Dynasty clothing in general, I highly recommend following fashion historians on Weibo like 撷芳主人, 洛梅笙, 扬眉剑舞 etc.. If you don’t or seldom use Weibo (like me), you could find paintings, artifacts and archaeology reports for tombs from the Ming Dynasty and study them yourself. I know this sounds very basic and not helpful but honestly primary sources are the best. As for books on Ming Dynasty fashion, there is an illustrated book from 2011 《Q版大明衣冠图志》 made by 撷芳主人 which pretty much summarized all forms of Ming Dynasty clothing (I talked about it in this post), if you would like to buy it please get the newer version. There is also a new book that just came out called 《明鉴——明代服装形制研究》, the author is 蒋玉秋.

[rustbeltsinologist]

Love this analysis!

[audreydoeskaren]

can you please tell us historical facts about lesbians through out the chinese dynastys most notebly the tang dynasty

Hi, sorry for replying so late. I would love to answer this question but unfortunately as stated in my bio I don’t do anything prior to the Ming Dynasty. I tried to find some things regarding this topic and wrote one paragraph before realizing that the information was way too surface level and incoherent for it to become a post. Because of the patriarchy, historical women’s experiences in China were not very well documented and there are only bits and pieces of information we could find. @rustbeltsinologist recommended the book The Emerging Lesbian (2003) by Deborah Tze-Ian Sang which might be helpful if you would like to read about historical Chinese lesbians. I’m afraid this is about all I can help with.

For homosexuality in the Ming, Qing and 20th century, I have a couple posts already:

Homophobia in Ming, Qing and 20th century China

Cut sleeve symbol in other cultures?

Symbols for lesbianism in China, addition

Queer flowers other than lilies

Writing Chinese lesbians

Also, maybe this is a hot take but I’m not a big fan of the “x through the Chinese dynasties” format of writing, it just smells like a recipe for shallow Orientalist disaster. Posts like that are great as a starting point but we also need to move past them at a certain stage. Like I can barely handle the Qing Dynasty let alone the entirety of Chinese history. Besides that, a lot of cultural phenomena happened across dynasties; it’s not like people suddenly changed their minds about a certain thing the moment the regime changed. When it comes to things like queer culture or fashion, dynastic boundaries are often not observed.

[rustbeltsinologist]

Thanks for the shoutout. Agreed about the dynasty point. There are some depictions of both male and female homosexuality and bisexuality in the Ming Dynasty novel, The Plum in the Golden Vase (Jin Ping Mei 金瓶梅). That novel is set in the Northern Song, but it was written some 500 years after that in the late Ming. I'm not aware of anything particularly about the Tang Dynasty on this matter.

I found this article discussing "Female Romance in Ancient and Modern Chinese Society:" http://ir.lib.cyut.edu.tw:8080/retrieve/32777/1Fe++maleRomanceinAncientandModernChineseSociety11-1.pdf . The authors say: "Unlike Western society which considers male homosexuality and lesbianism as related, the ancient Chinese regarded homosexuality as solely a male domain" (p. 6), and "Before the Republican period, lesbianism seemed to disappear in the Chinese history. It was till the emergence of a new movement, The May Fourth Movement, that the issue of lesbianism was gradually emerged" (p. 31).

So, when answering this question of lesbians in the Tang Dynasty, there are two major issues: (1) aside from a few mentions here and there, there's not much of any primary historical sources left behind for us to see today about it; and (2) there's not a very good reason to assume that the Tang Dynasty particularly stood out from other periods before or after it in this regard. There were not a ton of men or women writing in the Tang Dynasty about female same-sex relationships, let alone in most of the other dynasties.

[audreydoeskaren]

do you know Chinese symbolism for homosexuality?

tw homophobia, pedophilia

Hi again, for gay men there are a couple really well known ones but I’m not sure if they were real or fabricated, because all the articles describing them always cite the same couple sources from Antiquity... I tried to verify them but the only articles that didn’t copy and paste from the same source came across as extremely homophobic, so I decided to give up. The most common and reliable one is probably 断袖 or “cut sleeve”, which I mentioned in a previous ask. I would like to use this opportunity to talk about some tangential but more important topics regarding homosexuality in China though.

As a followup to my previous ask where I said I'd look through some Ming and Qing novels to see how homosexuality was perceived at the time, the conclusion I (unfortunately) came to was that homophobia was very much alive and well in Chinese literature and society. A lot of people like to argue that gay people fared pretty well in China historically by either pointing to emperors who were or were rumored to be gay or time periods where gay sex was prevalent as a form of consumption. This is extremely shallow and also kind of Orientalist in my opinion, these arguments always go for the emperors and do not take nuance into consideration or dive into wider societal discourses on homosexuality in imperial China. If you research homosexuality in Europe by only looking at royalty, you’ll find plenty of homosexual behavior too, does that mean gay people had it very easy in Europe historically?? Not to mention that they usually don’t differentiate between dynasties, let alone centuries or decades, even though public opinion on homosexuality in China (or anywhere in the world tbh) could change very quickly. This is also sort of Orientalist, assuming “imperial China” to be a never changing entity with a never changing stance on homosexuality. Since I know nothing prior to the Ming Dynasty I’ll share some of my random findings on homosexuality and homophobia in the Ming, Qing and 20th century.

Gayness as disease

Nowadays the symbol of the cut sleeve is just a benign historical allusion but historically it seems that it was used in a negative and condemning sense, implying that people thought of homosexuality as a disease or deviation from the norm. The common phrase used for the cut sleeve is "断袖之癖", usually translated as "the passion of the cut sleeve" nowadays, but the meaning of the word 癖 here leans more toward "fetish", "obsession" or "hobby" with pathological connotations. I thought maybe this word had a different, nuanced meaning historically but it seems that it was used to describe what it means :(( The only silver lining is probably that with the progression of language it isn’t offensive anymore.

In a lot of popular novels from the Ming and Qing, homosexuality was depicted as a "perversion" and a decadent lifestyle that plagues morality, and gay characters were often either killed or straightened out by the end of the story. An example of this is the story 黄九郎 Huang Jiulang from the series 聊斋志异 Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio by 蒲松龄 Pu Songling written in the 17th century. In this story, one of the protagonists was gay; he died after confessing his love to the other guy in a very fast paced bury your gays arc which somehow reminded me of the Supernatural finale, and reincarnated as a straight man because of his piety. Thanks I hate it. Pu uses the symbol of the cut sleeve to refer to the protagonist, presumably in a negative manner.

Gayness as power/status symbol

Another thing was that historically in China a lot of people confused homosexuality with pedophilia. This is a global thing, but its presence in China is often overlooked. This could be seen in the popularity of another term for homosexuality, "娈童", meaning something similar to "pederasty". I read somewhere that since the late Ming, pederasty was considered a type of tasteful consumption for high society, along with things like fashion, food, music and art. This was not equivalent to the "cut sleeve" or homosexuality as we know it nowadays, which refers to a personal sexual orientation, pederasty historically often refers to an imbalanced power dynamic where a wealthy, privileged man takes advantage of a young boy as a leisurely activity. It’s more to show off that someone in a position of privilege and wealth has the power to procure sexual objects, gender and age don’t matter much in this regard. I cannot help but cringe violently whenever someone brings up pederasty as proof of China’s historical “openness” toward gay people. Talk to me again when in this time and place you could marry someone of your sex (not a minor) and be considered a respectable couple instead of two jerks with a degenerate fetish (not saying that gay people have to marry, it’s just that the ability to do so is an important indicator of equality imo). Pedophilia and homosexuality are not one and the same good heavens.

I hypothesize that the reason why Chinese society was historically homophobic despite having no religious condemnation of homosexual individuals was the idea that having many concubines and male children was a status symbol for men. Women of marriageable age were seen more or less as commodities and male children could supposedly "continue the bloodline" 传香火 and were vessels for passing down prestige, so having them were of utmost importance to a privileged man. Being just gay or lesbian, however, meant that you didn't perform the "man strong working woman weak making babies" heteronormative family prototype, and was thus prone to criticism. When gay men didn’t have children they “couldn’t continue their bloodline” and were emasculated, when gay women didn’t have children they failed to “fulfill their duties as a woman” and were shamed.

It kind of makes sense considering how being bisexual was never a problem in comparison, especially for men. If you were a rich guy who had both male and female partners, you would still have children and concubines both male and female so nobody gives a shit. Emperor Zhengde of the Ming (reign 1505-21) was presumably bisexual and had both male and female lovers, nobody had a bone to pick with that; he famously liked to fuck around but those who criticized him did so for his debauchery instead of focusing on the gender of his partners.  This is different to homophobia in Europe where same sex attraction was considered evil and immoral in and of itself because of religious reasons, in China it was rather the other practical implications of homosexuality (not having children or a family) that attracted hate.

By the way can we just take a moment to talk about bi erasure in Chinese history. From all accounts of Emperor Zhengde I’ve read he comes across as extremely bisexual, but a lot of people try to make him a gay icon? I mean, he liked women too.

One interesting homophobic angle in ye olde China which I find kind of funny was straight women who wanted to climb the social ladder by marrying rich men talking shit about them after figuring out they were gay lmao. Historically, there were not so many work opportunities for women, so the easiest way to improve social standing was to marry a rich and powerful guy. Not saying that women didn't work, they did but their upward social mobility was restricted because they couldn't enter the imperial examination system which was how men became rich and powerful. This angle is relatively benign and kind of helps illustrate that historical Chinese homophobia was indeed fueled by classism and patriarchy.

Gayness as crime

I used to think that there were no anti-sodomy statutes in China (laws prohibiting sex between gay men), but it turns out that there was one decree in the Jiajing era (1521-67) and one in 1740, and private gay sex was not actually decriminalized until 1957. Same sex marriage is still not legal in China at time of writing. I couldn’t find detailed information on what these laws entailed or how they were enforced, but they’re enough to prove that homosexuality in China was legally punishable from the 16th century onward. On top of that, even when there was no law prohibiting private sex acts between people of the same sex, displays of gay affection such as kissing or holding hands could still be legally punished under “public indecency” or “hooliganism”, which was frequently what happened in the 20th century. 

[rustbeltsinologist]

Great post! If I can jump onto this (PhD in Chinese History here), I'd like to recommend that the best book in English about this topic is Passions of the Cut Sleeve, by Bret Hinsch. Even for an academic monograph, this book is very readable and the examples inside are interesting. It focuses on male homosexuality in particular. For female homosexuality, the only monograph I've seen is The Emerging Lesbian, by Deborah Tze-lan Sang. There may be some more out there now, and this book is focused mostly on modern China in particular, through literature.

Going a bit further back in time, in ancient China, it seems that many ancient texts assumed that rulers were bisexual. It was taken as a given that some emperors/kings would have a "male favorite" who was described in sexualized and feminized terms as an entertainer and confidant of the emperor. I don't think there was anything that I've seen that talks about any men being exclusively homosexual in ancient Chinese texts, however.

Regarding the 20th century, which I specialize in, I can input a little bit more. You are right that open and private displays of same-sex affection in 20th century China were punishable as "hooliganism." The exact roots of this criminal code are not totally clear. It seems likely that Nationalist and Communist lawmakers and police were taking cues from similar Soviet, Japanese, American, and German laws. The ROC and PRC modelled much of their modern institutions and bureaucratic norms from these countries in the period from the 1910s to the 1960s. That's not to say that there wasn't, as you noted, homophobic ideas and laws in pre-modern China, too. But those were largely inspired by Confucian dynastic ideas about the continuation of the family line through male succession and an overall suspicion towards "sexual vampirism." But after the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, in the context of the modernizing/Westernizing revolution, polygamy was outlawed and the one husband-one wife model of monogamy was legally institutionalized and promoted in China. In this context, heterosexual couples were encouraged by the regimes to participate in a sort of modernizing nation-building project that involved them adhering to a heteronormative sexual order. This way, they could promote the reproduction of future "good citizens" of the republics. After 1949, both the ROC and PRC punished homosexuality through tactics like raiding and shutting down popular gathering spots for gay people and providing means for people to report on their neighbors for "indecent behavior." The household registration system, work unit system, and communal labor system in the mainland, as well as the baojia system of mutual responsibility in Taiwan made this kind of social policing of non-heterosexual behavior possible.

[rustbeltsinologist]

Final Fantasy IX Review

Am I the only person who didn't like playing Final Fantasy IX? I just finished it and I gotta say it's the second worst in the series of the ones I've played so far. So far I've played 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, and 15. But everywhere I look on Steam, Youtube, and Reddit, this game is absolutely beloved and cherished by some as the best in the entire series. There are, broadly speaking, a few major types of Final Fantasy games: story heavy vs customization heavy, 2D vs 3D, fully customizable characters vs set character jobs, turn-based vs action RPG, etc. There are the best and worst games in each of those categories. For me, 9 was the worst of the PS1 generation and only second to FFII as the worst FF I've ever played so far. I don't know if the MMO's (11 and 14) are really includable in these discussions because those are just a totally different kind of gaming experience. There is a difference between saying a "least favorite" and a "worst" game, and this one is definitely one of the worst, not worth calling a "least favorite." This game is actually bad in my opinion.

First, I will get the good out of the way because obviously it's not all terrible and I understand that many people love this game. If I grew up in the late '80s to early '90s playing the original NES and SNES FF games, I can see how 9 would seem like a loving tribute and last hurrah to the classic style after seeing how much 7 and 8 changed up the franchise so much. The best parts of this game, to me, were the characters Quina and Steiner for comic relief, and Vivi's story. In gameplay, I guess I enjoyed grabbing blue magic spells from enemies for Quina and beating some of the tougher bosses. The movie cutscenes were very good quality for an original Playstation game. But that's about where it stops for me.

The bad: battles are too slow, designs are unappealing to look at, most of the main cast of characters are unlikable, and the equipment-based ability learning system is just the worst to grind through. The amount of time it takes from the start of a random encounter to when you can actual do anything in combat is too long. After that, some of the battle animations from enemies are way too long, and when you fight three of them at a time who all cast the same 20-second long spell every turn, you're in for a long battle. Leveling up is easy in this game, and you can reach your desired level with little grinding, but the real big kicker in this game is the ability learning system. You have to learn new spells, upgrades, and abilities by equipping the right items and then grinding with them for AP. The problem with this is that some abilities can take over 100 AP to learn, and you usually can't earn more than 3 AP per random encounter. Boss fights dole out more, but on your first run through this game good luck with being able to predict and plan all that out ahead of time. I spent a good 10+ hours of my playthrough of this long, long game just trying to gain AP for abilities. That's too much. I am going to go out on a limb here and say that I think that even FFVIII's junction system was better than this because at least it didn't take tens of hours to utilize properly.

Regarding the art style, I just cannot get past it. For me, this was not a Wind Waker effect. I do not enjoy the aesthetics of this game after some time. Specifically I do not like Zidane's giant hair, Vivi's overly bulky clothes, Steiner's armor shorts, and the fact that you can see Dagger's buttocks the entire time you play the game. It's like they made everyone's head too big and smushed everyone down into hamburgers in this game. I get that it was supposed to be a stylized 3D version of the older 2D sprites, but this did not look good to me. The Nintendo DS remakes of 3-6 in 3D did a better job with that attempt, I think. I can't be the only one who doesn't like the visual style even after all this time, can I? It seems that every glowing review acknowledges that they are perhaps unappealing but that they don't care and eventually it grew on them. That never happened to me.

I sat through this game because I thought that it has to get better at some point. It's gotta pick up eventually, right? Some other Final Fantasy games are way better in the latter half or final third, but this one did not satisfy.