Talk:Cheongsam

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[edit] Cheongsam is NOT THE SAME as QIPAO

In the movie "In the Mood For Love" the actress Maggie Cheung wore a different cheongsam for each scene. 46 in total. Not all 46 made it to the final version of the film.

I think the writer got confused. Cheongsam is NOT THE SAME as QIPAO. Cheongsam is made of thin silk. Qipao is thicker and less refined. They are definitely NOT kimonos. These are all propaganda from the North and from Beifangren. Please do not call what Maggie Cheung wore in In the Mood for Love a Qipao. That is incorrect. Qipao are thicker and less revealing, more conservative. And most Qipao are 2 piece suits popularized by the Communists, they are not Cheongsam. Cheongsams are 1 piece suits that are more sensual that were banned by the Communists. Please do not usurp Southern Chinese culture. Thanks.

[edit] Kimono

Why are qipaos confused with kimonos? I think the article should cover that. Cromulent Kwyjibo 22:31, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Probably because they're both associated with Asia, and a lot of people don't bother distinguishing Japan and China.

[edit] Qipao v. Cheongsam

I'm confused by the frequent use of the word "cheongsam" in the article, despite the article being titled "qipao". The article should use whatever term is the most common, and then that should be the term used throughout the article, to avoid confusion. Then, in the part on Kill Bill, it says that the costume designer must have confused a qipao and a cheongsam? If the concepts of cheongsams and qipaos are different enough, they should be two separate articles. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 18:20, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

The recent addition was not very accurate to my knowledge. Qipao and Cheongsam are similar, but there are some differences and overlaps. The recent changes mixed them all up.

The original Qipao was a Manchu's traditional dress, so it probably dated back to even before the Qing dynasty. Qipao (modern) is also the Chinese words (Hong Kong Cantonese) for Cheongsam (the English loan word).

Cheongsam (the original Cantonese Chinese word, not the specific English word) means long dress (chang2shan1 in pinyin) which is the generic terms to cover both the mens and womens dress in that style.

Cheongsam (the English loan word) probably has the etymology from Hong Kong Cantonese which refers to the modern sexy cut Qipao made in the British colony that were originally from Shanghai. Modern Hong Kong people still call this Qipao formally, but Cheongsam informally.

The mens dress is always called Cheongsam, not Qipao.

The recent addition in the article also mixed in some mainland China information regarding the banning of the sexy cut Cheongsam after the conservative communist government took control. The confusion starts to build up when the English loan word Cheongsam (sexy kind) is explained as the Chinese word chang2shan1, and its relation to the original century old Qipao and the currently Hong Kong usage of the word Qipao, and the Mainland usage of word Qipao are all blended together. I think this article is a mess because each contributor was actually talking about a different item when they write about Qipao or Cheongsam.

To clean up the mess, whoever write this article should be aware of multiple dimensions of these terminologies as follows:

the English word Cheongsam verses the Chinese word changshan. (the English word is specific, the Chinese word is generic)
the Hong Kong usage verses the Mainland usage. (the HK usage is relevant because the English word Cheongsam came from Hong Kong Cantonese)
the mens cheongsam verses womens qipao
the different stages of the evolution of this dress over the years, namely:
- the original traditional century-old Manchu style, (Qipao)
- the conservative 1910s New China era style, (changshan)
- the sexy western influenced pre-communist Shanghai style, (note many Qipao tailors fleed to Hong Kong during/after the civil war.)
- the sexier Western influenced British colonial Hong Kong style, (Cheongsam in English, Qipao or Cheung Saam in Chinese)
- the Maoist sexless everybody-is-your-comrade style. (need help from wikipedian in Mainland China to expand on this.)

This mess requires good English to fix. I don't think I qualify for the job. I just hope my explanation above clear things up a bit.

Kowloonese 01:25, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

But you got information required to rewrite it. Some English speaking native can then proofread it?

What I came to comment here about was the remark about Kill Bill. It's speculation without reference that they didn't do it on purpose and make a female character seem more masculine and strong, by dressing her in male costume. Is there a way to get a source for this? -- Suviko from fiWikipedia

As someone whose family still wears cheongsam for special occassions, cheongsam is used for both the mens and female versions with qipao being used only the female version. But saying that, we can look at Kimono as an example, kimono strictly applies to both men's and female versions, but is popularly seen as applying only to the female version in the West, by including both in the same article the reader can be informed of the reality. One has to ask what an average user expects to find when entering Cheonsam into the search box, and if this hypothetical user will know to search for qipao when looking for the female dress? KTo288 14:45, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Why not just put one of those lines up top saying "This article is about the men's version, if you're looking for women's version, go to qipao" or something like that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.107.58.131 (talk) 06:07, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Better Pictures

Qipao are very elegant. Someone should post more pictures of historical qipao and modern ones to compare and contrast. CanCanDuo 01:12, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree, better pictures are needed.--Balthazarduju 00:06, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Done.KTo288 18:59, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chun-Li

Well, when she made her first appearance, she literally wore a peach colored qipao, although in-game she wore blue, although all later games, she wore blue throughout the game. The first game where she only wears a blue qipao throughout the game is Street Fighter II: Champion Edition. --PJ Pete

[edit] Cheongsam and qipao

There is a problem in this article. The cheongsam in English is identified with the tight-fitting Shanghainese (later Hong Kong) style of qipao. But the article goes through the history of the qipao, and shows pictures of clothing that is worlds away from what we regard as a 'cheongsam' in English!

I think that we need to reach some kind of consistency in usage. My suggestion is that we should use the original Chinese words (in Mandarin pronunciation) for both the original baggy qipao and the male item known as changshan. It's ridiculous to use "cheongsam" for either of these, because no matter what 长衫 means in different dialects of Chinese, the word 'cheongsam' in English will always be associated with the sexy Hong kong style!

So my suggestion is that we should use qipao historically, and restrict the use of cheongsam to the modern tight-fitting garment -- noting, of course, that qipao is also used in Mainland China to refer to the modern tight-fitting article. That will perhaps mean a little rewriting to disentangle these meanings. The semantic complexity can be represented as follows:

Garment -----------MANDARIN---------------CANTONESE----------------ENGLISH

Baggy female (old)-----qipao---------------cheongsam?/keipo?-----no name

Tight female (modern)--qipao---------------cheongsam/keipo------cheongsam

Male version---------changshan------------cheongsam---------------no name

Instead of pushing 'cheongsam' to fill in the gaps in English usage (gaps caused by the fact that these are Chinese items of clothing outside of English-speaking experience and history), I suggest using the Chinese terms instead. Otherwise the article could be utterly confusing.

What do people think? Bathrobe (talk) 12:15, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I've rewritten the article to refocus on English-language usage. In English, the cheongsam is a tight-fitting dress for women. That was the original term in Shanghai, where the modern cheongsam was invented, and it's the predominant usage in Hongkong. It's also the traditional usage in English. I'm sure there are people who've never heard of a cheongsam but have recently (maybe in the last 5-10 years) discovered that the sexy dresses worn by girls outside fancy restaurants in China are called qipao in Chinese. That's fine. The article mentions the Chinese word qípáo, and also discusses Chinese terms 旗袍 and 长衫. But mixing Chinese and English language usage together is really confusing. This is especially so when the qipao (but not the cheongsam) refers to the baggy old Qing dynasty style, so I've tried to distinguish between them by using qipao for the old style and cheongsam for the modern style. This is a useful and makes things much clearer for the English reader.

I'm sure that in the process of rewriting some mistakes or inaccuracies have crept in. I welcome people to come in and fix them up.

Bathrobe (talk) 03:57, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

Qipao → Cheongsam per Wikipedia guidelines ("Use common name" and "Use English")

While qipao is certainly used in some English contexts (especially by those familiar with China), cheongsam is the more widely-used general English word found in dictionary usage[1] and other explanatory notes[2], academic works[3], and commercial websites[4][5].

There is an argument that, in Chinese, cheongsam also refers also to a man's gown whereas qipao doesn't but, in English usage, cheongsam and qipao are interchangeable[6][7][8][9][10] with cheongsam predominant.

Though I'm normally loath to rely on Google searches, they are a good illustration here with exclusive use of cheongsam[11] almost double the exclusive use of qipao[12] (253,000 vs 125,000).

See above and Talk:Changshan for previous discussion of this issue. — AjaxSmack 21:04, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

Support English terms should be used for titles. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:07, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Oppose These 2 terms are not interchangable, but a lot of people thought it's interchangable. Let's bring it back to english context. Weight and mass are 2 different things, yet in real life they are mistakenly used interchangable. Cheongsam is for guys, qipao is for girls. To furthur prove my point, please go to Chinese Wikipedia (follow the interwiki). In the last sentence prior to "See more" section, you will see a phrase that says

另外，英文裡的Cheongsam雖然是「長衫」的音譯，在實際應用上僅指女裝旗袍。

Although you don't understand Chinese, I can translate the phrase for you. The phrase says "Cheongsam is the translated term in English, however, in daily context it should be qipao."

Who are you trying to kid? The Chinese says:"Also, although cheongsam in English is a transliteration of 长衫, in actual use it refers only to the female qipao". In other words, it completely disproves your point!

Bathrobe (talk) 04:33, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

You stated that we should use common name in here, so the move should be the other way around. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:09, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not disputing Chinese usage and have not tried to move the Chinese page, I'm only concerned with English usage here and it's cheongsam for the women's dress. Please look at the copious links I provided above. (I wouldn't presume to move zh:荷蘭 to zh:低地國 because the Chinese doesn't match the Dutch so don't presume the English name is "wrong" just because it doesn't match the Chinese.) — AjaxSmack 04:31, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Support Cantonese usage is what English adopted for this. 132.205.44.5 (talk) 19:08, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Support My reasons have been explained very thoroughly above. Bathrobe (talk) 04:30, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Support nom and Bathrobe Mcmullen writes (talk) 20:45, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
I guess as nom I should support the move. — AjaxSmack 08:48, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Question - if the current Qipao article is moved to Cheongsam, what will happen to the Qipao article? Will it be a redirect... or a disambig page? --Novelty (talk) 11:53, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

It should be a redirect.

Bathrobe (talk) 03:43, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Move completed

Per the discussion above, I have moved the article. Please make whatever clean-up is neccessary (eliminating double-redirects, adjusting article text, etc.). Kaldari (talk) 15:44, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

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