This article was seen on China Culture website. Under the column Chinese Way and entitled Secret of Attraction, it is talking about the Chinese perspectives on attraction and beauty. It covers from facial features to inner temperament. The picture of the ancient Chinese beauty is from the same article on China Culture.

Secret of Attraction

Feminine beauty has been celebrated over the centuries in China and the perception is ever-evolving, but an enduring beauty standard is as follows: a rosy plump oval face, new-moon-shaped eyebrows, delicate and soft limbs and fingers, and fine porcelain skin. More than skin deep, a Chinese beauty should also have good manners, temperament, tastes, and style of conversation.

Perfect Facial Features

Face

It is long held in Chinese ancient painting theory that an oval face makes for the best proportioned features.

According to this theory, the face can be transversely divided into trisections, or “Three Stops” - from the hairline to the eyebrow, from the eyebrow to the bottom of the nose, and from the bottom of the nose to the bottom of the chin. Vertically, the face can be divided into quinti-sections or “Five Eyes”- the distance between two eyes shall be the length of one eye, and the vertical distance between the outer canthus and the external opening of the ear shall be also the length of one eye. In addition, sweet dimples in the cheeks, or Jiuwo, literally a pit of wines in Chinese, are definitely a plus for female charm.

Eyebrows

Chinese people believe that the eyes and eyebrows of a woman can speak her mind.Shapes of eyebrows varied in different dynasties. In the Qin Dynasty (221-207 B.C.), long, bushy and curved eyebrows were in vogue while the following Han Dynasty adored “八” shaped eyebrows. Tang women loved to trim their eyebrows into the shape of the half moon or arched willow leaves. Thin, long and slightly curved eyebrows have been the major trend since the mid-14th century.

Eyes

Chinese poets often compare beautiful women to peach blossoms in spring. The eyes are long and slightly upcurved at the corners. Under the eyelashes is a pair of misty black pupils.

Lips

Chinese people adore a small, rosy, glossy, and gently up-curved mouth, the so-called “Cherry-like-little Mouth.”

Timeless Appeal of Slender Waist

The traditional Chinese theory of beauty says that a slender waist and a small waist-to-hip ratio are vital for feminine beauty. The “belle curve” showcases the softness and tenderness of women, fitting in with the aesthetic tastes of Chinese.

In ancient China a girl with an hourglass-shaped waist made for the perfect figure. Many ancient poems and legends have linked attractiveness with a thin waist. A legend dating to more than 2,000 year ago says that the King of Chu States lusted for narrow waists, leading to starving palace ladies. The Chu Waist was hence added into the vocabulary referring to a slender waist.

An Oriental Sexy Idol

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The Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节 zhōngqiūjié), also known as the Moon Festival, is a popular celebration of abundance and togetherness, dating back over 3,000 years to China’s Zhou Dynasty. This day is also considered a harvest festival since fruits, vegetables and grain have been harvested by this time and food is abundant.The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month of the Chinese calendar (usually around mid- or late-September in the Gregorian calendar), a date that parallels the Autumn Equinox of the solar calendar. This is the ideal time, when the moon is at its fullest and brightest, to celebrate the abundance of the summer’s harvest. In 2007, the mid-autumn festival falls on September 25.

In the Chinese lunar calendar tradition, the seventh, eighth and ninth months comprise autumn. During fall, the weather is getting drier, and the skies are commonly clear and cloudless and the nights crisp and sharp. Thus the festival celebrates the moon’s appearance as the brightest and most beautiful throughout the year.

The traditional food of this festival is the mooncake. Mooncakes are typically round, symbolizing the full round moon of the mid-autumn festival. The round mooncakes, measuring about three inches in diameter and one and a half inches in thickness are made with melon seeds, lotus seeds, almonds, minced meats, bean paste, orange peels and lard. A golden yolk from a salted duck egg was placed at the center of each cake, and the golden brown crust was decorated with symbols of the festival. The picture above shows a typical mooncake and its inner and outer packages.

Nowadays there are many different varieties of mooncakes, and there are even square-shaped ones. Last month, a super large mooncake was made in Shenyang, Liaoning, weighing nearly 13 tons. This mooncake is 8.15 meters in diameter and 20 centimeters in height, and has a coating weighing one ton, and filling weighing 12 tons, and took ten chefs more than 10 hours to make it.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the two most important holidays in the Chinese calendar, and the other being the Chinese Lunar New Year.

Quoting from Xinhuanet.com, and pictures added by the Journal:

The poet, Qu Yuan, lived in the state of Chu during the Warring States period (475 B.C. to 221 B.C.). He drowned himself in the Miluo River in today’s Hunan Province in 278 B.C., on fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, hoping his death could awaken the king to revitalize the kingdom.

The date has since been remembered as the Dragon Boat Festival, or Duanwu Festival, on which local fishermen row dragon boats along the Miluo river to search for Qu Yuan and scatter glutinous rice dumplings in the water to prevent the fish from eating his body.

And,

The appeal of traditional Chinese holidays is alleged to lie in the eating: mooncakes on the Mid-Autumn Festival, sweet dumplings on Lantern Day, and glutinous rice dumplings for Duanwu, or Dragon Boat Festival.