"Twilight Moon: Contemporary Women of Yangzhou: Yangtai Library · Social and Cultural Series

Author: Lu Wei Fang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-12-01
Features: In classical Chinese poetry, the most beautiful thing is the moonlight of Yangzhou, like a dreamlike glow. During the Tang Dynasty, Du Mu, who once dreamed of Yangzhou for ten years, never forgot "Under the bright moonlit night of the Twenty-Four Bridges, where are the fair ladies playing the flute?" Later poets even declared, "The world's three parts of bright moonlit night, two parts belong to shameless Yangzhou!" Yangzhou thus became famous for its "two-thirds bright moon." During the Qing Dynasty, the talented woman Chen Susu of Yangzhou even took the name "The Lady of the Two-Thirds Bright Moon." As a historic and cultural city, Yangzhou has an extremely rich cultural heritage. Today's women of Yangzhou are equally worthy of the reputation of the "Two-Thirds Bright Moon." They do not shine as dazzlingly as the sun but rotate with the sun in the sky, silently shedding gentle light upon the world. Today, how are the women of Yangzhou in various fields living and surviving? In a society where traditional male culture still deeply influences Yangzhou, how do they strive and fight, sweating and crying?