CHANGSHA, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- With Spring Festival just around the corner, women from a remote village in central China are busy sending their best wishes in Nvshu, the most gender specific language in the world.
Hanging new red couplets and the Chinese character for "fu" -- literally meaning happiness -- on their doors is an important tradition to usher in a prosperous and happy new year.
But now old customs have come alive in digital forms.
As tens of millions of Alipay users across the world play the "fu"-scanning game to grab a digital red packet, Hu Xin, a museum employee in Jiangyong County in Hunan Province, writes by hand.
"In every 12th lunar month of the past four years, I present 'fu' characters I write as a new year gift to those who like my handwriting," Hu said.
Over the past month, she has already handed out 500 of them in Nvshu characters after posting a notice on her WeChat moments.
Hu has learnt the art of Nvshu (women's writing), a rare Chinese syllabic script used exclusively amongst women in Shangjiangxu town of Jiangyong. The museum she works for collects Nvshu calligraphy and artifacts.
Normally painted on paper or embroidered into cloth, the intricate Nvshu characters, with a unique writing style, were supposed to illustrate female postures. Women used this ancient method to communicate their deeper feelings with each other. They also used it to record their lives and write songs.
It is the only script used exclusively amongst women ever found and reveals the feminine characteristics of delicacy, according to Hu. Original copies of Nvshu are rare since they are usually burnt or buried with the dead.
The creation and small-scale dissemination of Nvshu remains a mystery. "The writing skills are only passed onto females," Hu said.
Utterly unique, Nvshu made a worldwide stir on its first discovery in the 1980s and in 2005 set a Guinness world record as the most gender specific language.
In 2006, the age-old art earned a place on the list of national intangible cultural heritage.
Hu Meiyue, a practioner of Nvshu in her mid-50s, shares her experiences related to the art and provides on-the-spot teaching of Nvshu calligraphy and singing. "Reading Nvshu writing is all about exploring the stories of women," she said.
The women writing received national and local attention and promotion in recent years, with academic and civilian studies increasing.
In recent years, Nvshu exhibitions have been held at the U.N. Headquarters in New York and its office at Geneva. Practitioners have been invited to present and promote the art in Japan.
