Fan has several thousands of years along the Chinese history, and after more and more improvement, it becomes a colorful family. The working people and fan handicraftsmen choose the local raw materials to create the feature fans by their ability and wisdom. Below are part fans for brief introduction: Feather fan It has been three thousand years to feather fan.

    All the working procedure includes searching, choice, brushing, washing, arrangement, repairing, sewing, fixing, rearrangement and decoration etc. If the final color is not the origin of feather, another procedure of dyeing should be done. The most importance to a feather fan is the paired feather on both sides, which have to pick up them from one bird on both wings in the same place. See picture 3-4, the feather of this hawk from Qing is paired.

    Shaped fan Most ancient silk fans have the exquisite design and various decoration, that is said, shaped fan is very popular among the normal people with the both-sided single color, pulpy gold or blue porcelain color in various shapes of moon round, cashew and hexagonal. All of them have the calligraphy and golden painting on, which the name "shaped fan" comes. The handles of the fans are usually made of mottle bamboo and brown bamboo, also ivory as well. Regarding the detailed shape of silk fan, the moon round is the most, apart from this, there are shapes of hexagonal, octagon, polygonal, palm leaf and phoenix leaf etc. See picture 3-5, Chinese flowering apple, U-shaped and quincunx are also the usual shapes. On the cover of silk fan are the flower and bird, fish and bug, landscape, also figure and Buddha as well embroidered. Chinese embroidery had been already exquisite in Song dynasty.

    It is made of the buffalo rib during Suzhou , Changzhou , Jiangxi and Canton . After skiving, sawing, digging, blanching, shape, carving, polishing etc. some procedure, the bone is exactly like the ivory.

    Du ring Guangxu period of Qing dynasty, one fan handicraftsman Gong Juewu wove the fans with Chinese characters of "luck" and picture of "pie singing on the plum blossom" by thin bamboo strip, which was extremely popular among the people. Gong fan was chosen the best yellow bamboo on the hill. The yellow bamboo must be cut down after the autumnal equinox and the white dew soon each year. Dip it in the water from mountain and select the none-stripe bamboo with fine color, then scrape the outside green skin, split into strip and polish again and again when it was transparent. The last step is to weave patiently according to the design sample. There are several thousands of thin organzines and woofs interleaving. The most important thing is that Gong fan could be woven the landscape, dancing fairy, flower and bird by the thin bamboo. Gong fan has another fun is that the cover of fan shows itself white color with the dim bird and flower, when you face it, and turn left, the cyan patterns and white leaves appear, turn right, it is completely opposite. That is really interesting and great.

    Now there are many varieties of palm-leaf fans in the market. For example, "glasses white" (picture 3-11) is the top pyrographic palm-leaf fan produced from professional manufacture of Canton . And "pinstripe fan" is woven as the pinstripe of the palm leaf.

    Hanging fan It has another name "screen fan", for hanging on the wall or putting in the sitting room for decoration. The frame has the length of 60-70cm, actually this is a large folding fan. (picture 3-20) Wang Xingji fan manufacture produced a huge screen fan "panorama of West Lake in Hangzhou " with the 2.6meter length of side, around ten square meter when spread and sixteen kilogram. The frame of fan is made of top wood material and on the two sides of fan, the famous ten views of West Lake is separately embossed. Sixteen pieces of brown paper make up a whole cover of the fan, with silver foils strewing at random on the paper, the panorama of West Lake is on it, and exhibited in Hong Kong . This is probably the largest folding fan in China .