The  Sedan Chair (轿子jiàozi)  is a human or animal-powered transport vehicle for carrying a person, which was once popular across the China in old times.

According to historical books, the sedan chairs, originally called “shoulder carriage”, was appeared in the Xia Dynasty. The great Jin-Dynasty artist Gu Kaizhi painted Admonitions of the Instructress to the Palace Ladies (Nvshi Zhentu) which featured the scene of Emperor Cheng of the Western Han Dynasty riding in a shoulder carriage. In the Tang Dynasty, the sedan chair was not a commonly used transport vehicle. It was in the Song Dynasty that sedan chairs were popularized and served as usual vehicles. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, four-person or eight-person carried sedan chairs were developed. And riding in a sedan chair became a fairly usual way to get around.

There are sedan chairs lifted by two persons, four persons or eight persons. When it comes to its kind, the sedan chair can be classified in to three types: sedan chair for officials (guān jiào 官轿), the civilian (mín jiào 民轿) and weddings (hūn jiào 婚轿). As far as the purposes are concerned, the sedan chair has two types: one is for mountain roads, and the other for flat roads. According to materials, it can be classified into three kinds: wood, bamboo and rattan. The sedan chair can be lifted by manpower or animal stocks, such as camel sedan chair (tuó jiào 驮轿) and elephant sedan chair (xiàng jiào 象轿) which the emperor of Yuan Dynasty (yuán cháo 元朝) had taken before.

The sedans familiar to modern people are warm sedans that have been in use since the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The sedan body is fixed in the wooden rectangular frames on the two thin log poles. The top and four sides of the seat are enclosed with curtains, with a chair blind that could be rolled open in the front and a small window on each side. A chair is placed inside the enclosed space. Sedan chair used by the people are sedans with plain-color curtains and those with bright-color curtains. The former  is for women to travel outdoors, the latter  is exclusively for brides to attend the wedding ceremony.

Nowadays, sedan chairs are mostly used in the tourism industry. Bridal sedan chairs are usually placed in tourist attractions to reenact the ancient Chinese wedding ceremony or to be used as a photo prop.
 

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