gloomy lab

Wagner /Cyrus ,蒙德城两个惹火的男人

元宵节快乐🏮！！！

Happy Lantern Festival！

Happy Chinese New Year! 大家虎年快乐！！！

Onmyoji "Lotus Crown"

Tang dynasty women playing polo, paintings by Wang Kewei

The word polo is thought to derive from the Tibetan pulu, the wood from which the ball was made.  

Much controversy surrounds the origin of polo. Tibet, China, Iran, India, and Central Asia have all been proposed as homelands for the game. It remains possible that the game had more than one point of origin, though a recent study has argued convincingly that polo developed in northeastern Iran out of the equestrian chase games played by the mounted nomads of Central Asia in the last centuries before the Common Era.

Polo probably was introduced to China sometime between the end of the Han period (206 B.C.E.- 220 C.E.) and the early part of the Tang dynasty (618-907). It seems likely that it was introduced by the Xianbei tribes that controlled northern China from the fourth to sixth century. The ruling house of the Tang dynasty, the Li family, itself had Xianbei ancestry, at least on the maternal side. The Xianbei, because of their nomadic origins, had a great fondness for horses, a trait that (like many aspects of their culture) was inherited by the Tang dynasty. It is also notable that the Xianbei accorded higher status and more physical freedom to women than the Han Chinese, so women became avid polo players under the Tang dynasty.

The emperors of the Tang dynasty such as Zhongzong, Xuanzong, Muzong, Jingzong, Xuanzong, Xizong, and Zhaozong were all supporters and participants themselves in the polo sport. In the 6th year of the Tianbao era (747), Emperor Tang Xuanzong issued a special order, and declared that polo would become one of the subjects for military training.

Polo was wildly popular during the Tang dynasty but it was also dangerous; riders thrown from their horses were frequently injured or killed. So sometimes donkeys were used instead of horses - as a safer alternative.

The Tang era terracotta figurines of polo players, both male and female, were unearthed in China. The game is also depicted on paintings and on frescoes in excavated tombs.   

From Tang times on, the education of the upper class became more bookish, and martial skills, such as horsemanship, archery, and swordsmanship, came to play a lesser role in the elite life. So polo also gradually lost its popularity and completely faded away by the Qing dynasty. 

Women stopped playing polo much earlier - when the conservative Neo-Confucian teaching grew in popularity after the Tang dynasty fall. For women, Neo-Confucianism placed extra emphasis on chastity, obedience and diligence. A good wife should have no desire other than to serve her husband, no ambition other than to produce a son, and no interest beyond subjugating herself to her husband’s family. Of course, this left no space for physical training, horsemanship and sport.

“Feed me“.

The creators of The Longest Day in Chang'an did their best to reconstruct all aspects of the Tang era, from etiquette to attire.

During the Tang Dynasty men usually wore yuanlingpao 圆领袍 - “round-collared robe”, more practical and comfortable than clothes of the earlier eras. Yuanlingpao was inherited from the Northern Qi and Sui Dynasties, but also influenced by the hu - “northern barbarian” - fashion from Sogdiana and Persia.

As everywhere in the world before the invention of cheap, bright and persistent dyes, the color of clothes in the Tang era indicated a social position: the brighter and purer the shade, the richer and higher in rank the person is.

The Tang officials wore clothes of different colors depending on their rank. In the picture above, the ranks grow from right to left - from light-blue to purple. 

The purple color signified the highest official rank. Officials in purple wore on their belt a fish-shaped pendant made of gold, officials in red - made of silver. These pendants served as a token of authority and as a pass into the Imperial palace.

In The Longest Day in Chang'an, purple robes are worn by eunuch Guo Lishi, Right Chancellor Lin Jiulang, and by the Crown Prince’s tutor He Zhicheng. He Zhicheng’s golden fish token also plays a role in the plot.

The head of the Crown Prince’s guards, Yao Runeng, wears a red yuanlingpao and has a token with silver fishes:

Women during this period had a variety of styles to choose from, but the most iconic female attire of the Tang Dynasty is a dress with a chest-high skirt - ruqun  襦裙, often accompanied by a wide and long scarf - pibo 披帛:   

The Tang Dynasty was a time of a relative freedom for women. They learned history, politics, and military skills, played polo. The dark ages of Neo-Confucianism and foot binding hadn’t come yet.

At the founding of the Tang Dynasty, Princess Pingyang personally participated in battles, having led her army to help her father, Emperor Gaozu. Princess Taiping, daughter of Emperor Gaozong, twice suppressed mutinies inside the Imperial court. Not to mention Wu Zetian - the only female Emperor in the Chinses history.

This was reflected by the female fashion: like men, women also wore yuanlingpao, as well as hufu 胡服 - “clothes in the northern barbarian style”, which allowed more freedom in movements. 

In The Longest day in Chang'an, Tanqi, Zhang Xiaojing, Prince Yong, Wang Yunxiu, Wen Ran, Longbo wear hufu:

Differences between the “northern barbarian” hufu and the Chinese yuanlingpao (hanfu):

1) hufu is often shorter;   

2) hufu usually has a turn-up collar:

3) the most important distinction - the flap of hufu is in the middle, the flap of yuanlingpao is on the right:

Despite having a turn-up collar, this is hanfu (yuanlingpao), not hufu, because the flap in on the right side:

In The Longest day in Chang'an, hufu and yuanlingpao also differ in that hufu are made from fabric with “exotic”, bright, distinctly foreign prints, while yuanlingpao - from fabric with woven patterns, or fabric with more subtle, Chinese-looking prints.

Prince Yong in hufu:

Emperor Xuanzong in yuanlingpao (hanfu):

The ‘Heavenly Vessel” arrives at the “Heavenly palace” as Tianzhou-1 docks to Tiangong-2. After two days of orbit-raising maneuvers following launch, China’s Tianzhou-1 cargo freighter arrived at the Tiangong-2 space station Saturday morning, April 22. The two spacecraft docked automatically while flying more than 238 miles above the Indian ocean with contact occurring at 12:16am. With a combined mass of 21 tons, the Tianzhou/TIangong complex is the heaviest orbiting Chinese spacecraft to date.

Tianzhou-1 is also the first Chinese spacecraft to be equipped with an upgraded APAS docking system. An upgraded version of the Shuttle-era docking system has been used by Chinese spacecraft since 2011, and the version on Tianzhou-1 features the capability to transfer propellant and other umbilicals between the two vehicles.

Tianzhou-1 will remain at the space station for several weeks before temporarily flying solo. The spacecraft will perform at least three separate docking maneuvers to demonstrate the feasibility of transferring propellants repeatedly. Below, the interior of the Tianzhou-1 spacecraft as seen on CCTV. Note the experiment racks for the spacecraft’s automated science experiments.