irst independent designs," she said. "t1 lot of questions came to mind which I never thought of at school: What should I design? What materials should I use? What colours should I choose? What styles will be popular? All this forced me to begin a market survey."

It came as a bit of a surprise when she saw her summer fashions welumed by customers. For the first time, she blended the needs of the narket with her own designs.

In Shenzhen, Hong benefited from watching Hong Kong TV and reading the latest fashion magazines from all over the world to keep pace uith international trends. Her big chance came when she joined the nahonal "Adult Spring-Autumn Fashion Designs Competition" sponsored by China Fashions Magazine and Central Television in 1985.

Hong was one of the five major winners thanks to her unconventional women's fashion designs.

But the private fashion market in Guangzhou is to date only a duplication and sales centre of new overseas fashions, according to Hong Xia. "It is active in buying and selling the latest styles form Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan but weak in designing its own styles, ?she said.

The potential for the sale of fashion goods throughout China has stimulated the development of the city's fashion market. Hundreds of stores selling world-brand clothes have sprung up.

Customers to these stores, she said, are mainly people from art circles,management personnel and young women working in hotels and offices. Prices range from 100 to 4, 000 yuan. People involved in the fashion business in Shanghai, Beijing, Dalian and Qingdao are also frequent customers.

"Although at present you seldom see styles designed by the city, s own designers, Guangzhou is gradually becoming a Hong Kong-style fashion market with Ihe appearance of these fashion stores," she said.

An obvious disadvantage for Guangzhou to develop into a fashion centre is the lack of its own fashion designers, and people in the city do not have the dress sense to appreciate fashion designs.

Realizing this, Hong decided to teach.

"I thought I should do my best to let more people know something about fashion designing by holding fashion shows, lectures and nightschools," Hong said.

"That was a turning point in my career," she said. "It paved my way towards success."

Hong Xia now has 25 students in her class in Guangzhou University for a two-year course. She teaches them not only the fashion theories but tells them about her own experiences as a designer and as a privare businessperson.

Hong has already seen the achievements of her teaching. In a national Youth Fashion Designs Competition nine of her students were chosen as excellent winners and one of her students received the first award.

As a fashion designer and a business woman,'Hong Xia has sold her works to fashion businesses in the United States, Japan, Australia and Hong Kong.

"Now I am looking forward to setting up a private fashion company to design fashions for foreign people staying in Guangzhou," she said."I'm working hard on it."

4.Jewellery Shining Once Again in China

Strolling through nearly every city, you can find jewellery shops and women wearing necklaces, earrings, rings and bracelets.

"Things have changed dramatically," said a middle-aged woman who had just bought a diamond ring at a jewellery exhibition held by a small arts and crafts store in Beijing's Chaoyang District.

"I'm the kind of woman who loves dressing up more than anything else, " she said. "But to my great regret, during the 'cultural revolution,' when I was a young woman, I couldn't make myself beautiful. by wearing fashionable clothes and beautiful jewellery. Now I am happy to have a chance to wear jewellery again now that it is becoming popular in China."

People, both young and old, women and men, have begun showing new interest in jewellery, especially since 1982, when the government reopened its domesitc gold market after it was shut down for 21 years. But different people think of jewellery in different ways.

Recompense

Fu Cong, 60, a retired man in Hohhot, capital of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, spent 700 yuan he had saved up for a couple of years to buy his wife a gold wedding ring for her 58th birthday.

"I consider it a recompense," he said. "When we were married 30 years ago, I had neither the money nor the idea to buy her a wedding ring since in the 1950s, a gift like this would have been considered wasteful and bourgeois."

Overjoyed at wearing the precious gift her husband gave her, his wife said that she has taken the ring as a good sustenance and hopes that their marriage will last forever.

"Wearing rings, earrings, necklaces and other ornamental jewels was very popular when I was a child," she said. "My ears were pierced a few days after I was born as were most little girls' at that time, and I began wearing a

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