THURSDAY, MAY 02, 2002
Feminine grace makes comeback in China
AFP
SHANGHAI: Willowy 21-year-old Huang Wenxian is a woman of many talents. She is not merely beautiful and clever, she also knows the correct way to eat a banana.
First you take the fruit, cut it open with a knife and then slice it into small pieces which you eat with a fork.
"You would do this on a formal occasion or in front of somebody that you really respect to show them respect and give them a good impression," she says smiling.
Huang is one of an elite group of girls at the Shanghai Normal University Women's College, who have been admitted to study Chinese Literature or Public Relations at China's first state-funded finishing school.
The curriculum includes ordinary coursework as well as Japanese, English, embroidery, tea ceremony lessons and Chinese and Western table manners -- so that regrettable faux pas with bananas can be avoided.
Many of the finer points of femininity lapsed after the communist takeover in 1949 when women, told by Mao Zedong that they "held up half the sky", were urged to strive for equal rights, dress alike and forget their feudal traditions, said course director Professor Sun Xun.
"After 1949, all government policies emphasised women's rights so there were no women's colleges, and they went to ordinary colleges," he said.
In the 1990s, the idea of all-female colleges resurfaced as society underwent a fundamental shift when many communist ideals began melting away.
However, the new breed of women's colleges are not aiming to be centers of academic excellence modelled on Girton at Cambridge or Radcliffe on the US east coast.
Rather, these new finishing schools are modelled on the Swiss ideal of turning out young ladies that know how best to get out of a car, arrange a bunch of flowers, or eat fruit with dignity.
"We started the women's college because although there is emphasis on women's equality in society, women's special talents are different so we set up a college to emphasize these qualities," said Professor Sun.
Certainly, with China entering the World Trade Organisation this year and the country's big cities becoming more cosmopolitan, there are arguments that young people need to grasp international manners in order to succeed in business.
Suggestions that these schools will merely turn out "flower vases" -- Chinese slang for trophy women who are empty and beautiful -- are vociferously denied by the administration and students.
"I can answer that accusation with facts. We are very capable. There is one girl on my course who has already written her first novel. Perhaps other people are just jealous," said Huang.
One woman who is sure that finishing schools will gain ground in China is June Yamada, a Japanese entrepreneur who aims to set up a "Style Academy" in partnership with the Jinmao Group that co-owns Shanghai's Grand Hyatt hotel.
Yamada is aiming to sell training courses to corporations or aspiring career girls who want to work for international firms but still spit their chicken bones onto the table.
"How do we tell Chinese people that their standards are not good enough? That's our biggest headache. But people need elegance. They need manners, and that is not the kind of thing that you find in university," she explains.
For all the progress towards women's rights made by the Communist Party in the last 50 years, China is still a deeply sexist society that values women's appearance well above their talents, and in the long-run these finishing schools may only exacerbate that trend.
For instance, the Shanghai Normal University, will only accept girls over 1.62 metres (nearly 5ft 4in) for their women's college courses because many companies place an emphasis on women being tall and pretty before they can even consider them for a job.
Twenty-one year-old student Li Ying said the height requirement was necessary if graduates are to find work.
"If we are in public relations or want to find positions as an administrative secretaries we need to be a certain height. Foreign public relations companies all have a height requirement," she said.
But while many Chinese firms do set standards, such ideas are unknown at multinationals.
"I've never heard of such a thing. As I recall, my secretary was quite short," said Shari Olynik, a public relations consultant who formerly worked for a major US PR firm.
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