Life peers are not considered members of the nobility so they are separately ranked in the non-noble list. For this list, the creation and possible amendment of the Ming Statutes are required. Duke: 8 lines of piping, standing brush with 5 twists, 4 pillars, 5 vanilla leaves, jade cicada. Earl: 7 lines of piping, standing brush with 2 twists, 4 pillars, 2 vanilla leaves, hawk’s-bill turtle cicada. Marquess: 7 lines of piping, standing brush with 4 twists, 4 pillars, 4 vanilla leaves, gold cicada. Earl: 6 lines of piping, standing brush with 3 twists, 4 pillars, 3 vanilla leaves, tortoise-shell cicada. Viscount: 5 lines of piping, standing brush with 2 twists, 4 pillars, 2 vanilla leaves, silver cicada. These suggestions are just one idea of what the possible Standards maybe like. Baron: 4 lines of piping, standing brush with 2 twist, 4 pillars, 2 vanilla leaves, black horn cicada. Of course, this is pure design as it has no historical bearing. It is logical, however, and would be a good compromise to a dead system as Chinese court dress has more or less fallen into obsoletion and out of proper usage. For these wearers, they need to know what is appropriate and logically correct and this information would be useful if one day they obtain the right to wear such court dress, however slim a chance it maybe. These are based on Ming Standard court dress. One would hazard a guess that no-one will know or care less since even in the modern era there are very few chances of wearing Chinese court dress and in such situations it would likely be on foreign soil (e.g. State Opening of Parliament, investitures, etc) where no one will know any difference or significance. There are other less formal everyday court dress that is simpler to assign into an Order of Precedence as there are simpler indicators, for example, all nobles wear the rank badge of a ‘qilin’ (Chinese chimera) whilst non-nobles wear the rank badge as dictated by their rank and division for ‘shangfu’ (everyday court dress). Given that the Chinese monachy is no more, there is no current Standard to look to for correctness therefore it is difficult to predict which of the two suggestions would be more appropriate. Everyday court dress of a 1st rank official. The only thing would be decree from a royal source but given the very unlikeliness of this happening, the choice may fall on the wearer. The safer route would be Option 2: using existing Ming Standard but this creates anomolies as the two lesser noble degrees are ‘degraded’ into non-noble status which goes aganist the British system. Option 1 is more logical and given that there is no legislation or imperial and authoritive jurisdiction from China to say otherwise, this would be a more proper way forward as it will fit into the British system more closely and accurately. The issue would be whether accuracy or authenticity is the most important aspect of Chinese Hanfu court dress. Another point of contention would be government posts. Since these do not fall under the Order of Precedence, they are difficult to define in the whole scheme of things. If we exclude non-governmental individuals then there would be no-one that could wear court dress at all! Given that members of the Orders of Chivalry are more likely to wear Chinese court dress (to investitures, etc) then it is probably more appropriate to entitle them to court dress and more probable that this would become reality than an idea on a page. I am still trying to figure out about this issue but it might not be worth the bother as it is highly unlikely that a government minister would wear Hanfu court dress so it might be a waste of time to bother with it… I have since come to the conclusion that Hanfu court dress is actually defunct and should not be worn. The reason is, as I said above, that there is no reigning Emperor of China to grant such governmental posts that would make the said people in these posts entitled to Hanfu court dress, nor are there any noblemen in China anymore. All pictures by 擷芳主人. Secondly, those who live as a British national are therefore subject to the rules and customs of Britain, including what court dress to wear. Hanfu court dress should not be worn. Thus, a Han Chinese person who is born in the UK as a British national must wear British court dress if he or she wears court dress. A Non-British Han Chinese however may wear whatever they feel fit, including Hanfu if they subscribe to that as their national dress but not Hanfu court dress as they are not entitled to it by virtue of no regining Emperor of China to give entitlement to wear it, otherwise it would be classed as ‘fancy dress’. Those who hold dual citizenship of Britain and China (inc. HK, etc) may wear British court dress or whatever dress they see fit as for Non-British Han Chinese.
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