Yang Huanyi

Wang Shusheng

Yang Huanyi, an inhabitant of Jiangyong County, Hunan province, was known as the last user of Nüshu script (women's writing) and died on September 20, 2004. She was the last inheritor who can recognize, read, sing and write Nüshu, which means that after her death it's only researchers that are capable of these.

When she was young, Yang studied Nüshu together with Gao Yinxian for three years. They cultivated a true and deep friendship and often communicated with each other by Nüshu. Yang attended the National Academic Research Seminar of Nüshu in 1991 and the World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. Her works about Nüshu have been collected by Zhao Liming, a professor of Tsinghua University and was published in 2004. Yet, her death brings about a hard hit on Nüshu. To some extent, people mourn her by means of protecting Nüshu education and the government is trying their best to restore Nüshu to its former glory. Basically, Nvshu is a part of Chinese traditional culture.

Life Experience

Yang Huangyi learned medicine from her grandmother during her childhood and she specialized in curing pediatric measles. Her father, Yang Shiyang, who was an village country doctor had an open mind. Realizing that people who had studied Nüshu were more civilized and well-educated, he encouraged Yang Huanyi to learn it. At that time, you needed to make a payment if you wanted to study Nüshu so one penny must be paid after you had learned how to write one word. Poor as she was, Yang never gave up studying it. She earned money by means of doing part-time jobs as well as reaping beans and peanuts for others. She learned it more than three years and paid tuition fees of over 1000 pennies in total.
At the age of twenty-two, she married a man who was two years older than her, following her parents' demand. Nevertheless, unexpected things may happen at any time. After they had been married three months, her husband was bitten by a poisonous snake unfortunately and passed away. Two years later, she remarried He Yuancun, who was a compulsive gambler. He was accustomed to gambling outside day and night, considering family's affairs as none of his business and leaving all of them to Yang Huanyi. Every time when he lost money due to gambling, he would sell pigs and millets to repay the debt. As a result, Yang's family was very poor and owed a lot of gambling debts. Though Yang altogether gave birth to eight children, finally only two sons and one daughter survived. To bring children up, Yang suffered untold hardships so she wrote and chanted Nüshu during free time to pour out the anguish of the heart and divert herself from boredom.

In 1990, Ms Zhao Liming, a professor of Tsinghua University, went to Jiangyong County to inspect Nüshu. As soon as the two people met each other, they formed indissoluble bond. Yang donated all of her works, including over 35,000 characters, to Zhao. By research, Zhao found that thanks to Yang's little knowledge about square Chinese characters, her Nüshu works are original material of Nüshu. As a result, she determined to publish a work collection of Yang for her. In the following year, Yang attended the National Academic Research Seminar of Nüshu. In 1995, she attended the World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. In January 2004, The Works Collection of Yang Huanyi's Nüshu was published after the sort of exports in Tsinghua University.

Contributions

Yang is called "Living Fossils of Nüshu", especially after Gao yinxian and Yi nianhua, who were also the successors of Nüshu, passed away. Yang's work has been preserved to let people know and understand Nüshu. There's no doubt that Yang has made great contributions to rescuing and protecting the unique cultural heritage Nüshu. Regardless of her death, people will keep her in mind and thank her for her Nüshu work.

Works

《百岁女书老人—阳焕宜女书作品集》

==References==