On July 6, 2026, a group of 27 Italian teenagers from Tuscany arrived in Sanya, Hainan Province, for a two-week study exchange at the Sanya Affiliated Middle School of Shanghai International Studies University. The program, organized by Hainan provincial cultural authorities, immersed the students in Chinese traditional culture through paper-cutting, hanfu try-ons, and Mandarin language classes, using clothing as a bridge for cross-cultural understanding.
Scissors to Silk: A Hands-On Cultural Encounter
The paper-cutting workshop introduced students to the Chinese art of jianzhi, where a single sheet of red paper transforms into intricate decorative patterns through precise scissor work. Mariana, one of the Italian participants, successfully cut a coconut palm on her first attempt before progressing to more complex designs including the double-happiness character and window flowers. When one student accidentally cut a window flower in half by folding the paper in the wrong direction, the classroom erupted in laughter, lightening the atmosphere.
The instructor explained that red window flowers symbolize completeness, happiness, and celebration in Chinese culture. Mariana said she found the technique simpler than expected but the results striking, and planned to paste her window flower on her window back in Italy as a souvenir of the Sanya trip.
Hanfu Try-On: Wei-Jin Wide Sleeves and Ming Mamianqun
The traditional clothing session proved to be the most popular activity. The program laid out garments representing multiple Chinese dynasties: wide-sleeved robes from the Wei and Jin periods, ruqun and beizi sets from the Tang and Song eras, mamianqun and qipao from the Ming and Qing periods, and ethnic minority garments from Hainan’s Li and Miao communities. Italian students raised their hands eagerly to try each style.
Rosita Coticelli chose a large-sleeved skirt ensemble and playfully demonstrated the wanfu li, a traditional women’s greeting gesture she had just learned. She noted that Chinese traditional clothing differs dramatically from Italian folk dress, and that the evolution of ceremonial garments across different dynasties was particularly fascinating. She took numerous photos in hanfu to share with her mother back home.
Beyond clothing and crafts, the exchange program included Mandarin language instruction with a Hainan flavor. Alessandro Chiari, who had studied Chinese for two years in Italy, expanded his vocabulary with regionally specific terms including Li brocade (li jin), boat-shaped houses (chuanxing wu), coconut chicken (yezi ji), and qingbuliang, a local cooling dessert. He observed that many Italians view China as representing the future, citing the country’s technological advancement and modern infrastructure as reasons to persevere despite the difficulty of learning Chinese.
The Broader Context: Sanya as a Gateway
The choice of Sanya, a tropical coastal city better known for beach tourism than cultural exchange, reflects a deliberate strategy to present Chinese culture outside the conventional settings of Beijing or Xi’an. By bringing Italian students to Hainan, the program exposed them to both mainstream Han Chinese traditions like hanfu and regional minority cultures like Li and Miao textile arts, offering a more diverse picture of Chinese cultural identity than a single-city program could provide.
The Italian delegation came from Tuscany, a region with its own rich textile heritage dating to the Renaissance. The implicit parallel between Italian and Chinese textile traditions, while not explicitly discussed in the program, provided an unspoken foundation for the students’ engagement with hanfu. For Rosita, the comparison was instinctive: she recognized that both cultures use clothing to mark social occasions and express identity, even as the specific forms diverge dramatically.
The Sanya exchange illustrates how hanfu can function as more than a domestic fashion trend. When placed in an international context, traditional Chinese clothing becomes a tactile, wearable entry point into Chinese history, offering foreign visitors a physical experience of cultural concepts that lectures and museums alone cannot convey.