Hidden Letters is a pensive documentary which follows several practitioners and masters of the Nushu language. This unique script has been passed down through women in the Jiangyong region of Hunan for hundreds of years. It passed under the radar until 1983, when a report was made by a scholar who was working to translate the text into standard Chinese. Cultural quirks such as burying practitioners with their Nushu writings makes dating and tracing the history of the language nearly impossible, but scholars have seen simplifications of Nushu used in documents dating from the Song dynasty.
Hidden Letters follows three women. Xin Hu works at The Museum of Nushu and is a master calligrapher. Her teacher, He Yanxin, is the last surviving master of the art of Nushu calligraphy. The film also follows Simu Wu, a young inheritor of the tradition who sings Nushu and uses the script in her art. Both history and the lived experience of these women are examined in this in-depth 89 minute documentary.
This documentary looks at the continuing patriarchal domination of modern Chinese culture through the lens of a secret women’s language and it's speakers. Jiangyong has a particularly long-lived gender bias which has its foundations in Confucian practice and was one of the last regions to abandon foot binding. The three women documented in Hidden Letters share many experiences, memories, and a love of their language. Attempts to further preserve and spread Nushu are hampered in particular by men in positions of power who only see the economic value of the secret language, cementing the idea that money has more societal value than a woman or her work.
The rise of capitalism in China is tied to a return to patriarchal roots by several women including Simu Wu’s mother. She says that the Cultural Revolution brought concrete and lasting gender equality to many Chinese women. When we see the way Simu Wu is treated by her fiancé and hear Xin Hu and He Yanxin talk about the way they were abused by their husbands, it is clear that modern economics have devalued women outside the realms of motherhood, housework, and spending power. Anyone interested in international women’s studies or Chinese dialects will want to see this well shot and expansive documentary. Highly Recommended.
Where does this title belong on public library shelves?
Hidden Letters belongs in collections about Chinese language and culture, women’s studies, and history documentary collections.
What type of instructors could use this title?
Any professor of modern Chinese history or culture, Women’s studies, and anthropology will find fantastic value in Hidden Letters.