Made in Macau | The disappearance of ‘min naap’

Jenny Lao-Phillips

The “extreme” cold weather these last few days in Macao has got me thinking about the good old days – days when we used to have a normal-length cold-ish winter. The first thing that came to mind was people of all ages wearing gold and red and pink “min naaps” 棉衲, cotton-padded jackets, around the time of the Chinese New Year. When I was a kid, almost everyone had at least a navy blue “min naap” for school and a red or gold one for the winter break.
“Min naaps” have always been a must-wear during Chinese New Year in accordance with the tradition. Not only was the cotton-padded jacket able to protect us from the very cold weather some 20 years back, it was also festive to dress in traditional Chinese style and in red during the Spring Festival. Silky red “min naaps” were the choice of many young ladies. However, this traditional Chinese New Year must-wear seems to have vanished in recent years, especially among the younger generation. So, what has caused the disappearance of this traditional costume?
At first I thought the reason must be the warmer weather during the Spring Festival every year leading to fewer people wearing “min naaps.” The layers of silk and cotton in “min naaps” are designed to keep us warm against very cold weather, which has become rare in Macau and Hong Kong in the last few years. So I’m not surprised that I haven’t seen many people wearing “min naaps” on the winter streets recently. In fact, it was only in these last few days when I overheard people talking about shopping for, or cracking out, winter coats that I started noticing that there was no sign of this traditional costume being worn or bought.
Out of curiosity, I googled the tradition of the “min naap” and found a column article from a few years ago, which revealed that young people in Hong Kong considered “min naaps” as 老餅 [Lo Ban = Old cake], a term used to refer to someone or something as old and boring. The tradition of wearing “min naaps” in winter, especially during Chinese New Year, has been around for hundreds of years, so of course it is old, as are all traditions and customs. It then occurred to me that the culprit was not so much the temperature but the fashion. Sometime between my teenage years and my thirties, “min naaps” have been voted out of the fashion trend. So, why does the younger generation nowadays consider “min naaps” to be outdated?
According to a few young people I surveyed, they think “min napps” are only worn by old people, and the designs are all similar, so they are boring and out of style. Moreover, they somehow believed the misconception that only down coats are warm enough for winter, and most of them prefer trench coats for parties and formal occasions. So, the “min naap” has totally lost its value, both in functionality for keeping warm, and in style as a traditional costume.
However, during my research (on Google), I was surprised to notice a blog from mainland China in which ladies discussed how it was worth paying premium prices to buy a golden, silk “min naap”. Their discussion centered on a few female characters in some TV programs in the mainland, about how elegant and graceful they looked in those “min naaps”. Now that’s the difference – no gorgeous young actresses or actors wore “min naaps” in modern Hong Kong’s TV drama; it’s usually middle-aged actors who wear them. So it turns out, even tradition needs product placement in TV programmes via celebrity endorsement to be kept alive. Jenny Lao-Phillips