Hidden Letters

This powerful documentary reveals not only the history of a secret language used by Chinese women, but how today's men are trying to capitalize upon it.

“Hidden Letters” would be a compelling enough subject for a feature-length documentary all on its own. It’s about Nushu, a secret language used for hundreds of years by Chinese women to communicate with each other and build a sisterhood while they bore the weight of oppression in a deeply patriarchal society where they were little more than slaves.

It was only publicly revealed about 40 years ago. Much of the language, which looks like thin, elegant symbols usually inscribed inconspicuously in rows on fans, scarves and other objects, is lost to time — quite literally buried with its authors.

Director Violet Du Feng shows us beautiful images of Nushu that are as much works of art as a form of communication. And we visit with both an old master of the language, He Yanxin, and young women have learned the language and are dedicated to continuing its legacy, such as Hu Xin, who works at a museum dedicated to Nushu, and a singer/calligrapher, Simu.

But then Feng takes things further, showing how Nushu is being commoditized by the male Chinese leaders. It went from being something used to give women a small breeze of hope and togetherness to something being slapped on chopsticks, T-shirts, storefronts — even one for a sex shop.

We’re struck by a ribbon cutting event celebrating the opening of a government-backed organization to promote Nushu. Everyone in the photo is male. Talk about a smh moment.

Nushu means “the words of ants,” and that’s how women were treated in China until fairly recently. Many were kept confined inside the house, their feet broken and bound so they couldn’t run away, their entire lives dedicated to bearing children (sons preferred) and catering to their husbands’ every whim.

Whenever people are oppressed, they inevitably find ways to express the pain of their suffering and seek creative outlets for them.

“Nushu is mostly about misery,” one practitioner says, neatly summing up its essence.

But much of that same thinking is reflected in the modern setting, even if its expressions is superficially less extreme. Hu Xin talks about being beaten by her former husband, though she admits still driving by his house sometimes in Shanghai and thinking about what might have been.

We also follow Simu as she balances her needs and desires as young woman engaged to be married. Her fiancé seems jovial and supportive. But in a visit to meet his family before the ceremony, it is made clear to her that she will be expected to give up everything important in her life — including Nushu, which he dismisses as a “hobby” — in order to become a full-time caretaker to his entire family, not just any children that might come along.

We also see the women trying, without much success, to push back on the commercialization of Nushu by male business leaders. They are urged to “open your mind” and not be hostile to ideas they think are loathsome. It’s exactly the sort of passive-aggressive barriers women everywhere encounter on a daily basis.

In one sequence, Hu Xin meets with the former (male) leader of her Nushu museum, who muses hilariously that it stands for “obedience, acceptance and resilience.”

And thus a secret language used by women to commiserate about their confined fate is turned into just another medium for men to make money and dominate the culture.

Thus: a $300 “Nushu phone,” sacks of potatoes — they’re regular spuds, but slapping some Nushu on it will make people think they’re “high end” — and even Kentucky Fried Chicken decorated with the slim lettering. “Nobody knows what it means, but it makes things look fancy” seems to be the operating mindset.

“Hidden Letters” is a tale of two tragedies: women having to find ways to secretly communicate their pain to each other, and modern men co-opting it for their own gain. It’s an engaging documentary that will stir your soul and set your temper to boil.