Talk:Hui'an maidens

A fact from Hui'an maidens appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 21 September 2008, and was viewed approximately 6,320 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the traditional dress of Hui'an maidens (statue pictured) has been jokingly referred to as "feudal heads, thrifty jackets, democratic bellies, and wasteful trousers"?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2008/September.

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Hi - as explained at present the maidens will never have children. Maybe a little more detail? I understand that the husband "visits" ... Victuallers (talk) 18:26, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ha.. There is a large difference between what people claim about their culture and what really happens. Certainly now, such marriage customs are probably nonexistent. Hui'an county is located close to Quanzhou which is a very modern city with a modern culture, and so strange cultural traditions disappear in proximity to modern centres. I'm thinking about studying Chinese history/culture at uni and will probably try to find out more about the old way of life for Hui'an women, if I can find enough I'll help improve this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Daemonax (talk • contribs) 16:58, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ethnic group?

How can you have a female ethnic group? What happens to their male children? Is there a cite for the claim that they are an ethnic group.

I would assume that what's meant is that they are an group of people (men and women, of course) in which the women have some distinctive and interesting cultural traits (i.e., women's clothing, etc.) and the men not so much. What's more, this probably relates more to outside perception rather than what their lives are actually like. The article should be reworded.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 01:18, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The whole thing seems a tad problematic to me. If they are an "ethinc group" that includes both men and women, then the current title is surely a misnomer. If the article is only about the women, then they should not be called an "ethnic group". Some peculiar habits resulting from geographical isolation does not an ethnic group make - especially when it's so small, and so similar to the surrounding population in other respects. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 02:42, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Copy vio

I reported this after reading the sources and recognizing lot of exact phrasings from this article. I have now looked to this in more detail and there are definitely some bits I listed below that are too near verbatim and other bits are closer than I would like but are three and four word phrases are more debatable. Still I would suggest whoever is responsible needs to tighten up their practices and try not to use even the exact phrases like "distinctive customs and traditions" when you can rephrase it as "unique traditions and culture" just to be safe in the future. It is not that difficult to take care and it just not worth the risk to copy things so closely

From [1]

Well known for their hard work and kindness, the women do most of the formwork, road repair, and family chores while their husbands are at sea.
- This copied far too near verbatim, although the second part is in quote marks in our article it is not actually a quote as it is not attributed to anyone.
jokingly referred to as the "feudal head, democratic belly, thrifty jacket, and wasted trousers" costume.
- Copied here too near verbatim. Quote doesn't really work for fair use as above because we are not commenting on Foo saying "some quote" We are just commandeering the quote without attributing it to anyone. This quoted bit might be able to be attributed in the proper way to redeem it's use but I don't think the first one can.

From [2]

In recent years, people in this area have had more contact with the outside world and they have been influenced by the marriage law. For these reasons, young people today refuse to obey old customs
- Again far too near verbatim in our version

We need to be displaying best practices on the Main Page. Not how we loosely we play with copyright. Although this article should be saved and not deleted the DYK is itself one of these verbatim bits.--BirgitteSB 03:42, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with rephrasing "distinctive customs and traditions" as "unique traditions and culture" is that it is simply not the same. Their clothing style does seem distinctive (at least compared to the other inhabitants of the region), but it is not unique because other minority groups have identical clothing styles according to the article itself! Near-synonyms are not only near-hits but also near-misses (and annoyingly, there are no really perfect synonyms, although in context they can be perfect enough for practical purposes at least), and "unique" is not even at all the same as "distinctive". Also, "culture" and "customs" is not the same. That's what makes rephrasing texts to avoid copyright problems or in order to provide a summary so maddeningly difficult for careful writers (who are aware of subtle distinctions just like the mentioned ones): You often introduce inaccuracies or even outright factual errors that way. The danger is, of course, greater the less expertise you have on the subject in question.

If you do have better ideas for how to rephrase problematic parts without distorting the meaning, by all means do share them here, but don't be so cavalierly about semantic differences. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 08:46, 9 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]