Doll-A-Day #359: Chinese Sword Dance Doll

I love this doll. She's beautiful, and interesting. She's a doll representing Chinese sword dancing.

  She is actually from China, as her tag shows.

She has two swords, as they are Chinese hook swords, which are used as a pair.

 

Wikipedia says: "The hook sword, twin hooks, fu tao, hu tou gou (tiger head hook) or shuang gou (Chinese: 鈎 or 鉤; pinyin: Gōu) is a Chinese weapon traditionally associated with northern styles of Chinese martial arts and Wushu weapons routines, but now often practiced by southern styles as well."

  Click the Wikipedia link above to read the full article. There isn't much known for sure about hook swords. they may or may not have been used in the military, but probably not. They may be from this region or that.  They may be ancient, or more recent. Geez.

  Her pose, with one foot in the air behind her, is one typically seen in pictures of Chinese sword dances.

She is wearing a silk outfit, with top, trousers, and skirt.

There's a lot of decoration on her clothes. I'm not sure if it's painted, or decal of some sort.

 

She has little black shoes with white soles.

She's about 8 or 9 inches tall, and attached to a wooden base.

I'm not sure what her hair is made of. It's twisted into two buns and decorated with sqiggly gold thread.

It has a stitched part.

She kind of reminds me of Bernadette Peters.

She has a delicate little face, with soft sculpture features.

  Before I accidentally erased this whole post, (!!!), I had a link to a good site about Chinese sword dancing. Now I can't find it. It just doesn't show up when you search 'Chinese sword dance'. 

  Ivy and I both have some Chinese dolls with similarly made faces. In fact, this sword dance doll looks like an older version THIS GIRL of Ivy's or  THIS GIRL. of mine. .They both have the same soft sculptured faces and hair made of the same stuff...whatever that is.

  359! We're nearly there! This may be the first Doll-A-Day to not miss any days at all! My sister keeps telling me I should just forget it and say, oh well. But I am so close to accomplishing what I said I was going to do, in spite of everything that happened this year. And I am going to do it!