Quiet communication
Secret language shared by women enjoys renaissance, Hou Chenchen reports.
Reviving language
Two years ago, Rosie met Hu Xin, now 36, who helped promote nyushu at the museum in Puwei. Hu is the youngest designated inheritor of the script, following support from the authorities to help preserve it. In 2000, Hu, her mother and her sisters attended evening classes to learn nyushu. Hu subsequently became a guide at the museum.
"When I started working at the museum 15 years ago, nyushu was so niche that even many local women didn't know about it," Hu recalled, noting how challenging it was to learn the language from scratch.
She had to memorize two to three characters each day from a dictionary compiled by researchers before the last native users died.
Hu's favorite line in nyushu poetry is, "Men are said to have great ambition, but women are just as excellent."
She said she believes the revival of nyushu is deeply tied to the idea of "women's empowerment", championed by young women like Rosie.
When Rosie was preparing for her degree exhibition at the Cambridge School of Art under the UK's Anglia Ruskin University, her desire to delve deeper into nyushu and bring it into contemporary art led her to Puwei island for field research.
