Fans are given as presents to one’s friends. They are always given by schoolmasters as prizes to their scholars.
The folding fan has a varying number of stems. Women’s fans have generally thirty thin stems. The most common are made of bamboo; the best are made of ivory, betel, or sandal wood. They are carried in a case of embroidered satin, which is fastened to the belt by a ring of jade. The round fan is usually made of silk, with ivory or bamboo handles, the prolongation of which is either hidden between a double mask of stuff, or is visible on one side only. Ladies use them at play for catching butterflies, or fireflies at night. On such occasions they fasten a sachet of scent to the end of the handle, which scents the air as the fan is moved.
The portrait of the fashionable poet of the day is always to be seen painted on the fan; thus Lu-Fong Oun, the popular poet of the thirteenth century, was surnamed Buddha of the Thousand Families, because his portrait was to be seen everywhere, and because his light and graceful verses could be understood by everybody. It is a very usual thing to compare a friend to a fan, because of his refreshing influence on the mind. A woman who fancies that her husband’s heart is hers no longer will compare herself, as we shall see, to a fan cast aside in the autumn.
A favourite named Pan-Tie-Tsu, beloved at one time by Emperor Hiao-Tcheng, seeing herself deserted, sent a fan to her master, on which she had written the following lines:—
“I have just woven with my own hands this white silk, White as the snow and as the ice. I cut it to make a fan of it, Round as the full moon is. I would wish that it might be with you wherever you may go, And that the air it gives you may, from time to time, refresh your memory. I foresee, however, that when autumn comes, Or the cold weather shall reduce the heat of the day, It will be cast aside into some box, and removed from the favour of your Majesty, Even as she is who gave it to you.”
Another woman, who had been disfigured by disease, sent her lover a fan, on which she had written the four following lines:—
“Oh, the fan! Oh, the fan! You serve to hide my unhappy face. I am hideously ugly; And I am ashamed to present myself before my lover.”