From tun-sam-fu to cheong-sam: The outfit as entry password between two worlds in The Bewitching Braid by Senna Fernandes

Abstract

This study discusses how the outfit is a fundamental aspect for the construction and functioning in the narrative of The Bewitching Braid (1993), a novel by the Macanese writer Henrique de Senna Fernandes (1926-2010). The change in clothing and accessories of the Chinese protagonist A-Leng is a relevant and recurring resource in Senna Fernandes's plot, and gives the story an enormous potential for exoticism and visuality, as relevant in this sense as the Macanese cuisine analyzed by Brookshaw (2011) in ‘A Cuisine of Nostalgia: The Role of Food in Senna Fernandes’s A trança feiticeira’, an article that inspired the present study. We propose as our reading hypothesis that the two styles of outfit worn by the Chinese protagonist A-Leng – the tun-sam-fu and the cheong-sam – function as entry passwords for A-Leng into the westernized and modern life of the Macanese community of Macau in the 1930s-1940s. To contextualize the novel to the reader, we will briefly present the neighborhoods of Macao, from the narrator’s perspective (the Chinese neighborhood and the Christian city), the setting in which the story unfolds. Next, we will highlight some characteristics of the main character A-Leng and her romantic involvement with Adozindo, who comes from the Christian community of Macao. Finally, we will analyze the fundamental role of A-Leng’s outfits in the transit between Macao’s two communities – the Chinese and the Western. The tun-sam-fu (a costume from China’s feudal tradition worn by working women) and the cheong-sam (a shophisticated Chinese dress appreciated by Western culture) are effective passwords in the narrative to uncover and overcome the borders imposed by the two communities in Macao.