Dress.
The young women enjoyed wearing colors, pink and green and blue being the ones most preferred. The ordinary dress was a large-sleeved robe of silk or cotton over a longer garment, under which were loose trousers fastened round the ankles just above the small feet and tight shoes. They wore their hair hanging down in long tresses, and the putting up of the hair was one of the ceremonies preparatory to marriage. The eyebrows were blackened with charred sticks and arched or narrowed to a fine curved line, to resemble a young willow leaflet or the moon when a day or two old. Cosmetics were used quite freely, on grand occasions the face being daubed with white paint and the lips and cheeks with red, so that all blushes were covered up. They wore bangles, bracelets, and ear-rings of glass, stone, and metal. "A belle is described as having cheeks like the almond flower, lips like a peach's bloom, waist as the willow leaf, eyes bright as dancing ripples in the sun, and footsteps like the lotus flower."[95]
In some parts of China, if not in all, the baby in summertime wore no clothing at all. In the winter it wore quilted trousers with feet attached. In some parts the trousers of the baby were partly filled with sand or earth, so that it was a common saying that a person who displayed small practical knowledge had not yet been taken out of his "earth-trousers." The older children wore the same pattern of clothing and cut out of the same kind of cloth as their parents and grandparents.