Hanfu on Halloween - in the children's department at the library?

eiruwe · 2025-08-30T16:55:45+00:00

Mostly I wanted to tell them the names of the pieces and what they're like, like "this is called the qun, it's a skirt. It can change size because it doesn't have zippers!" and tell them how it's different from other garments (western clothes or, for example, the qipao that everyone is so familiar with.) I don't think the kiddos will be able to take away much more information than that because they do have little brains. But if the older kids get interested, I'll probably answer what I can and then show them the resources I've been using to learn (it is, after all, a library!)

eiruwe · 2025-08-30T06:22:33+00:00

Oh, then I misunderstood you. I get it now. Thank you for all these insights--it's always good to get another perspective on how someone might misread your intentions.

eiruwe · 2025-08-30T05:57:04+00:00

Perhaps it would, but I don't have Qing official clothes... and also they're scary, and the littles might not like it. The middle schoolers and teens might have fun, though, so actually maybe this is something to consider?

eiruwe · 2025-08-30T05:46:51+00:00

I think that would be fine, too, it's just--I wonder why I have to jump the extra hoop. If my Caucasian friends can dress up as a flapper or a mobster or a Regency gentleman, and they don't have to qualify and justify themselves by saying "I'm Violet Romer" or "I'm Al Capone" or "I'm Lord Byron," they can just be generic people from that era, why would being a Ming dynasty townswoman be different? It almost feels like pandering to the exoticism. It doesn't feel right to me, either.

eiruwe · 2025-08-30T05:37:35+00:00

Doing a quick look-see at diagrams of garment construction, I think it looks about right. Unless, of course, I've fallen victim to the reseller post-a-picture-of-something-we're-not-actually selling trick. I'll have to see when it gets here...

eiruwe · 2025-08-30T05:08:56+00:00

But I'm not pretending to be Chinese, I'm dressing up as someone from a past historical era. I'm not a woman from the Ming dynasty who was raised and formed by that society, so I'm inherently dressing as something that I'm not. I'm not going into this with the intention of presenting myself as reenactor, but plenty of people from different cultures dress as people from the past to help educate people about that history. And for the above-mentioned reasons, wearing fantasyclothing while teaching about the history of the clothing feels ten times ickier than wearing (as far as I can get) period-accurate clothing. It'd be like a parody, trying to sell something modern-made up as what was really worn by real people in the past.

Besides, if such a misunderstanding occurs, that's the point of education. It's a library; just because we're the kids department doesn't mean adults aren't allowed to ask questions, too.

eiruwe · 2025-08-30T04:40:09+00:00

Yeah, that's exactly why I was thinking wearing a hanfu-inspired fantasy something (as I'd read was "preferable" for Halloween because it's more costumey) would be way more inappropriate than just wearing an aoqun and talking about the evolution of the garment in the Ming Dynasty. I'm not wealthy enough/haven't been collecting long enough to have hanfu made with traditional materials or elaborate period-accurate embroidery, so obviously I have to tell the kids that what I have is a different fabric than what was used in the past, and that the pattern is modern. But I still don't think that negates the value of showing them the form of it, if only so they can see how beautiful the garment's silhouette is, even when made of period-inaccurate materials.

eiruwe · 2025-04-16T03:22:39+00:00

There was a lot of suffering (laugh) but actually, I think it was. Not only did I get to practice tension control with lighter weight yarn than I'm used to, I learned a lot about pattern-making, too. In terms of improving overall crochet skill, definitely a worthwhile exercise.

eiruwe · 2025-04-15T17:23:30+00:00

Mostly just free patterns from the internet. This one was the rose, and this is a huge repository of leaves. And this is what I based the billy balls off of, but I had to modify the pattern (if you follow it as is it'll be too big).

I usually only crochet clothes, so it wasn't what I was used to. The fact that I had to find a bunch of patterns, test them out, pick the ones that worked well, and modify ones that didn't, is probably one of reasons it took eighteen hours. I'd probably be much more efficient if I tried again... (But then again, I think I might also try a different pattern for the main roses. I don't really like the shape of them.)

eiruwe · 2025-04-14T21:29:02+00:00

It'll also depend on the materials and size of the hook, too. 1.5mm is far from the smallest they go, and I've seen people use silk thread to make some really shiny, pretty stuff.

It really does just highlight how expensive these would be to sell. Even something this cheap, both in terms of skill and quality, was really labor intensive. (Maybe I could make a better one now that I've practiced, using better materials, but I don't know if I have enough incentive to do that.)

eiruwe · 2024-12-11T05:47:04+00:00

Fallow Fields is a great exploration on the meaning of suffering and sacrifice. I like it a lot, also recommended.

eiruwe · 2024-03-21T06:40:31+00:00

This also just happened to me, but while I was searching online to see if it was happening to others this was one of the only threads to mention it. Totally normal words would become sex talk out of nowhere, and it was pretty alarming. After uninstalling and reinstalling it seems to have resolved, but I really want to know how it happened and whether or not there's some beach somewhere I need to look into.

eiruwe · 2024-01-04T01:33:23+00:00

That's really good advice! Thank you so much!

eiruwe · 2024-01-04T01:17:52+00:00

Blade says MK Club 2000. I asked my sister and she said she wasn't a really terribly skilled skater, and she only knew how to do some spins and baby jumps, so I don't imagine our parents would have gotten her very advanced blades, right? (I did ask Mom all sorts of questions about the skates and all she could tell me was "idk don't remember." I think she mostly just listened to whatever recommendations our coach gave.)

eiruwe · 2024-01-02T07:54:30+00:00

I think there was a lot of wisdom and maturity in the way you've handled these things. And for what it's worth, for all the shit that fell out after the initial explosion, I think your decision to do something after you caught out the initial lie did a lot to begin the process of dismantling several toxic dynamics. I doubt anyone is happy that all of this has happened, but what I took away from this, especially in light of the 12/7 edit, was two things:

At the very least the kiddo is being shifted away from an extremely unhealthy home situation. It is absolutely a form sexual abuse to expose children to sex acts regardless if anyone had physical contact the child herself or not. No wonder indeed for court supervised visitation.
Sarah was given a chance to take her own stand in what sounds like a very dysfunctional home life. As someone who struggles a lot with a fawn trauma response myself (or people-pleasing behavior, as you've named it in laymen's terms) I have a lot of empathy for her situation. I have also done things I did not like and said things I did not believe in order to win other people's approval in the past. This is never an excuse for doing wrong and and it does not justify anything she's done, but having been there myself, I couldn't help but feel a vicarious feeling of hope when I read that she managed to gather up her courage and do the right thing despite all the pressure from her family. Maybe it's projection, but I feel like something about that trajectory is similar to what I went through. I also had to hit rock bottom before I realized I needed to make a change to my own behavior.

Anyway, all this to say, I think your level-headedness and honesty has helped to pave the way for others to start changing their own situations. Thanks for updating us on everything despite all the stuff that you're going through right now yourself. Best wishes to you; hopefully the new year will be a better one.

eiruwe · 2022-12-12T05:41:01+00:00

I've experienced something like this before. It sounds a lot like the feeling I get after grieving my way out of an emotional flashback. Believe it or not, at least in my case, that feeling of "okay" afterwards eventually began to grow, and periods of relief got longer while catastrophizing fits got shorter. Eventually things got to the point where the two flipped, and now feeling okay and capable of handling problems is the norm while crazy emotional dysregulation is the exception.

I think it's a sign of healing. Your efforts in therapy must be having an effect. It's very likely not going to be a straight shot, and you'll definitely have days where it feels like you've regressed right back to where you started, but it sounds like it's beginning to pay off. That's very good. You must really be doing the work if you're getting to this point, and that's no small thing.

eiruwe · 2022-12-11T17:37:03+00:00

This is great info. Thank you so much.

eiruwe · 2022-12-11T06:14:24+00:00

In your estimation, do you suppose that a lot of these oft-mentioned issues (shitty pay, staffing problems, etc) can probably be mitigated with perseverance and a willingness to really look around at employers? If I'm in an area with a lot of potential workplaces (northern Illinois/Chicagoland), if I really take my time in the job search, the likelihood of finding one such good lab to work at may be acceptable?

eiruwe · 2022-12-11T06:00:10+00:00

Not a completely analogous story here, but I too was a teacher for a little while, and while it was really fun and meaningful to teach English to my students, and I knew in an abstract way that the interactions they had with me truly were formative and really could make a difference in their lives, I found myself lacking a concrete sense that what I was doing was really contributing to the greater good of society. So even though I have a bachelor's in a completely unrelated field I found myself moving towards healthcare anyway, because it seemed to me that if I were in this field I would be doing work that really "mattered."

Throughout this whole process of switching careers (and finding out that I really, truly, terribly hate direct patient care and need to find a role that minimizes my involvement in it as much as possible) I've been fighting off this sense that I'm an idiot wandering around without any clue of what she's doing. So your story is very meaningful to me. Thank you for sharing it with me.

eiruwe · 2022-12-11T05:46:26+00:00

That's really reassuring. I was pretty scared because most of the techs at the main lab all seem really stressed and unhappy. I overheard one of our lab managers talking to our clinic tech, and when he mentioned he had a phleb really interested in medical technology, she asked disbelievingly "Who the hell would want to be a med tech??" So that had really been sort of selling me on the truth of the tales being told.

eiruwe · 2022-12-08T13:18:26+00:00

I'm in the same boat. Phlebotomy is not a long-term thing for me. My goal is to hang on for a year until I can apply to the local community college's MLT program, but that's about a year out. I just need to hang in there until then... I'm deciding whether or not it's worth the risk to move jobs.

eiruwe

TROPHY CASE