What is Nu Shu?
Nu Shu is an ancient syllabic script developed by women, in secrecy, over hundreds of years in feudal China. Created during a time in China when only men received any kind of formal education, women were kept illiterate. Nu Shu was passed on through the generations from grandmother to granddaughter, aunt to adolescent niece, mother to daughter. It is the only known language that is gender specific, used and understood only by women. Nu Shu has only recently been exposed to the modern world.

Nu Shu originally contained only five hundred characters, but now contains up to seven hundred overall, some derived from the Chinese language, others based upon specific stitches in embroidery. A large part of the Nu Shu tradition is steeped in the creation of San Chao Shu or “Third Day Missives”, which were a way for the women to secretly express their thoughts and emotions to one another in a book that was given on the third day of marriage ceremonies. Like Chinese, Nu Shu reads vertically from top to bottom, columns aligned left to right. Nu Shu, unlike most languages, is not spoken, but sung. This ancient script has survived for over eight hundred years, but its existence is now threatened as China rapidly expands and the last remaining women, fluent in Nu Shu, grow as Tan Dun states “China is building so fast which is fascinating, but meanwhile worries me as an artist. Because as you are building faster you are losing faster too, those living traditions.” Tan Dun visited the small village in Hunan, recording over two hundred hours of footage he then edited it down into “13 mini micro films” and composed all new music to accompany them. As he says he created a “kind of visual symphony in dialogue with the sound, the voices [of women singing in Nu Shu] and with live orchestra acting in counterpoint to the calligraphy.”