Medieval Chinese Apparel - Keeping Food in your Sleeves

March 1, 2013 2:51 PM

So I'm reading the 17th-Century Chinese novel "The Plum in the Golden Vase" - which, by the way, is incredibly good - and I'm having trouble picturing something.

Throughout the book, the men keep hiding/storing/carrying things in their sleeves - and not little things, either - like, entire dishes of food and large quantities of silver money. How did this work? Shot in the dark question, thanks for any insight.

posted by facetious to Society & Culture (6 answers total)

Take a look at some traditional Han Chinese clothing. It might help you picture it a bit better.
posted by erst at 2:58 PM on March 1, 2013

Best answer: The sleeves may be sealed at the bottom, and allow your arms to leave the robe through a slit nearer towards the top. Many academic robes are made like that: I could comfortably carry to bottles of wine per sleeve!
posted by alaaarm at 5:13 PM on March 1, 2013

As I read this I was thinking the sleeves were very big, kind of reminded me of master's gown sleeves. The faculty at my college put all sorts of stuff in the gown sleeves, water, snacks, things to read.
posted by fifilaru at 5:15 PM on March 1, 2013

I can't back this up but I always imagined that heavier items (e.g. silver) would be attached to the arms in a way that wouldn't be obvious inside the large sleeves, not rattling around loose inside them.
posted by pullayup at 5:21 PM on March 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

There was even a fighting art which involved having weights in the bottom of the sleeve that you swung, if legend is to be believed.
posted by Abiezer at 2:40 AM on March 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Here's a nice little tumblr entry on 17th Century Chinese garments, so you can visualize how the sleeves look. As alaaarm has mentioned, there are variations on these where the sleeves are not fully open at the wrist, and instead are sealed off like giant pockets.
posted by hampanda at 2:25 AM on March 11, 2013