Two days ago, when we talked about black and white mixed-race faces, we mentioned that "our nation is not so much aesthetic Westernization as aesthetic Central Asianization", and everyone is still quite interested in this in the comments.
The face carries a familiar East Asian flavor, and can have a special sense of exoticism, which is the reason why the Chinese people are more receptive to the appearance of Central Asia, and it is also the best summary of the Face of Central Asia.
However, Shu found that few people have specifically talked about the regional aesthetics of the five Central Asian countries in recent years, and there is very little information that can be searched on the Internet.
As a transportation hub in Eurasia, once a necessary place on the Silk Road, natural energy rich, Central Asian countries are not like European and American countries, can use culture to invade everywhere in a hundred years, competing for everyone's attention.
"Central Asian culture is like a hard stone, that is, it is not very expansive, and it stubbornly resists the invasion of any foreign culture."
Mysterious and closed are synonymous with them
This "hardness", although it ensures that they can pass on their aesthetic culture as it is, also prevents us from exploring the pace of pluralistic beauty.
So Shu decided to take you to one of the Central Asian countries today, Turkmenistan, to gain a deeper understanding of this regional aesthetic that we have long ignored.
01
With the most enclosed environment
Restore the most original national aesthetic
Why Turkmenistan?
Because it is really representative enough in the mysterious, closed dimension.
The only permanently neutral country in the Asian plate, tourists were not welcome, the foreign-related marriage system is strict, and foreign citizens need to pay taxes to marry Turkmen girls... (The closed situation has been better in recent years)
Turkmen girl
Located in the heart of Central Asia, Turkmenistan, which has a huge wealth of oil and gas in its hands, can also attract strong covetousness, and it has been often contested since ancient times, constantly invaded by foreign tribes.
Before the formation of the Turkmen, the rulers of this land had Persians, Macedonians, Turks, Arabs, Mongols, and more than 70 countries alone.
At this level, independence and neutrality are the best options for staying away from strife in the future.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Turkmenistan declared its independence through a referendum and then passed a resolution, becoming a permanent neutral country.
In order to maintain the status quo of "I don't mess with anyone, no one should mess with me", Turkmenistan has hardly joined any international organizations, and even tourist visas are very strict, which has led to their cultural and aesthetics rarely spreading.
Turkmenistan has a famous "attraction" called "Hell's Gate", and the flames of the potholes have burned for 40 years and few people can witness it.
However, the relatively closed Turkmen also retained the most primitive national aesthetic.
Turkmen young people still like the most traditional national costumes, young men like to wear sheepskin top hats, shirts and oriental robes, young Turkmen girls will have more patterns and decorations, daily school, going out will wear red dresses with ethnic patterns,
Grand occasions, such as national events, weddings, the headdress, forehead ornaments, hair ornaments, chest ornaments, wrist ornaments, rings will all be worn, gold and silver bronze forged out of a variety of complex appearances, clothing is super high saturation, and then embroidered With Turkmen embroidery left by the Manchu generations.
This traditional Turkmen costume and embroidery has a strong oriental color, and many masters will also seek inspiration from Turkmen patterns.
The floor of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, inspired by Turkmenistan motifs by sculptor Baggio daGnolo
I remember that the photo taken by an actress two days ago was a handmade old embroidered dress from Turkmenistan, and the colorful colors did not lose their luster after the baptism of time.
What needs to be inherited can be passed on, and what needs to be retained has the ability to retain, which is probably the benefit of Turkmenistan's choice of independence and closure to its national aesthetics.
02
Ethnic appearance of Turkmenistan
Because of the relative isolation, Turkmen people are rarely likely to be mixed with foreign countries, and Turkmen people account for 94.7% of Turkmenistan's population of 5.62 million, in addition to a small number of Uzbeks and ethnic groups.
The ancestry of the ancient Turkmen can be traced back to the ancient Western Turkic Oghuz, the oldest Oghuz people who looked close to the Mongol race, with a tall body and a flat and broad face.
However, because the land has been frequently invaded and changed rulers since ancient times, the Turkmen are now essentially a mixture of Europa and Mongol races, and the Europa characteristics on the face are stronger, that is, more Westernized.
You should notice that we are more "unfamiliar" with the "beauty" of Turkmen beauties than the beauties of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
Kazakh vs Turkmenistan
China's Xinjiang region is also a mixture of Europa and Mongolian races, and this "mixed" method is not the same as the Turkmen people in Central Asia, and the proportion of gene expression is not the same.
Xinjiang vs Turkmenistan
If most of the beauties in Xinjiang are the bone phase of the Europa race + the skin phase of the Mongol race, with the high depth of the Europa race and the thin and soft facial lines of the Mongolian race, then the Turkmen race is more like reversing this expression: the bone phase of the Mongolian race + the skin phase of the Europa race.
Turkmen children with distinctly Europa-racial skin features
I struggled to rummag through a few photographs of ordinary Turkmen girls (there is really little information about Turkmen), most of them have the iconic wide cheeks of the Mongol race, the head is slightly larger, and some of them are not too deep in depth, but the lips are thin, the hair is heavy, the eye sockets are deep, and the width of the eye cleft is relatively large.
Looking at the bone phase is not a sense of familiarity
There are also types of Kazakhs with blue eyes, but they are less common among Turkmen, most of them still have yellowish skin and black pupils like the Mongol race.
There are also some Turkmen girls whose Europa genes are expressed more strongly.
A long time ago, watching "Do Not Disturb", there was a female guest from Turkmenistan in one issue, she looked more like a Russian, and her face could not see the Mongolian ethnic characteristics.
I also found a Turkmen model Renata Gubaeva, whose face is also the expression of Europa's ethnic genes, and you can't tell that she is Central Asian.
When I was writing the article, I saw that the aesthetic preference of Turkmen women is more like snow white skin, large eyes, narrow and tall nose, and it sounds like they will still advocate such a Westernized face for facial aesthetics.
03
"Very traditional" Turkmenistan
I don't know if you just noticed the screenshot of the female guest of "Do Not Disturb", Malika defined herself as "foreign girls are also traditional".
And in the end of the show, Malika successfully held hands with a Chinese boy, she said that because she was more traditional, she still wanted to find a Chinese husband to fit the values. (I don't go back to my hometown because I have a good job in China)
This is actually not the concept that Malika changed after she came to China, nor is it because she is a case, in fact, most women in Turkmenistan are like this, pursuing tradition, with beauty and dignity, gentleness and virtuousness, thriftiness, loyalty to love, filial piety to elders... Proud.
Because the country has a small population, the state not only has strict requirements for women to marry abroad, but also encourages women to have more children, if they can have eighty or ninety children, it is a "heroic mother", it sounds, the mission of this life has been achieved. (In fact, I have always believed that the status of women is closely related to the degree of social isolation)
This kind of thinking will also be mapped to the culture and art of Turkmenistan.
For example, their contradictory preferences for color.
The girls love the warm, flamboyant, colorful red, and are not afraid of the camera shooting of tourists, and the appearance is cheerful and bright.
But at the same time, the Turkmen people also love white and strongly promote the purity and purity of white.
Another example is the movie.
Turkmenistan's cinema, though small in number, created the golden age of Central Asian cinema in the 1960s and 1980s, respectively.
Although turkmenistan film aesthetics do not have fierce dramatic conflicts and no large sections of dialogue, they can use this blank space to portray the spiritual world, tell inspirational stories, and tell class differences.
Turkmen film "The Road to Challenge"
Curiously, however, the female figure in Turkmen films has always been very single, and some scholars have classified the female characters in Turkmen films into three examples: the pursuit of love and freedom of labor, the gentleness and virtuousness returning to tradition, and the courage to fight for rights, but accompanied by men.
The pursuit of freedom and the pursuit of freedom on the background of gentleness and virtuousness must also return to tradition, and while returning to tradition, we must have the courage to fight, which is more like a fierce struggle between tradition and consciousness awakening.
Closed and free, so for beauty they must be pure and warm.
The closure preserves for them the purest national beauty, but I really want to know whether every Turkmen girl who is seeking beauty will aspire to have the right to learn a pluralistic aesthetic like us.