ABSTRACT
This chapter presents to identify changes in the lives of a Chinese minority by examining the transformation of Chinese minority dress. It focuses on the Hmong living in Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province, China. Hmong society is patrilineal. A basic household is a nuclear family consisting of parents and children. Among Hmong dress, the most characteristic type is a finely pleated, knee-length wraparound skirt. Jiang seldom wore clothes other than Hmong dress. She put on a blouse, skirt, apron, belt and leggings as everyday wear. She characteristically wore layers of clothing. Jiang formerly made all the clothes, but she has let Bang, her daughter-in-law, handle this task since her eyesight began to fail with age. She sometimes mended tears to clothing, but no longer made new clothes. The Hmong clothes have always been produced and worn in the interaction with the social norms and the environment in which women, as the wearers, live.
