Difficulty: Summiteer (Level 3)
Chen Yulu is from China’s Hunan province. The 23-year-old is a self-proclaimed ambassador of nushu, a script once known only to a small number of women.
Nushu was created by women from a village in Jiangyong, a county in Hunan. The characters are skinny with curving characters, written with a slant that takes up less space than modern Chinese.
Scholars are not sure when this script originated. They estimate it is at least several centuries old, from a time when women were not allowed to read and write. So the women made their own script to communicate with each other.
Now, young people like Chen are spreading nushu beyond Jiangyong county, whose dialect is the script’s verbal component.
“I felt that I had received a very strong power, and I think a lot of women need this power,” said Chen, who made a documentary about nushu.
Nushu can be found in independent bookstores across the country, transport advertisements, tattoos and art.
