Queue (hairstyle)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The queue was a specific hairstyle worn by the Manchus of central Manchuria in China. The hairstyle consisted of the hair on the front of the head being shaved off above the temples and the rest of the hair braided into a long ponytail, or queue. The ponytail was never to be cut for it would dishonor one’s self.
[edit] History
The Manchu hairstyle was forcefully introduced to China by Nurhaci in the early seventeenth century. Nurhaci achieved the creation of a Manchu state in China, the Qing Dynasty, after having defeated the Ming forces in northern China. Once firmly in power, Nurhaci commanded all men in the areas he had conquered to adopt the Manchu hairstyle. The Manchu hairstyle was significant for it distinguished between the Manchus and the indigenous Chinese. It was a symbol of Han Chinese submission to Manchu rule. The queue also aided the Manchus in identifying those Chinese that refused to accept Manchu domination of the Chinese state.
[edit] Resistance to the queue
Chinese resistance to adopting the queue was widespread and bloody. The Chinese in Liaodong rebelled in 1622 and 1625 in response to the implementation of the mandatory hairstyle. The Manchus responded swiftly to this rebellion by murdering the educated elite and instituting a stricter separation between the Chinese and Manchus. In 1645, the adoption of the queue was taken a step further by the ruling Manchus when it was decreed that any man who did not adopt the Manchu hairstyle within ten days would be executed. The intellectual Lu Xun summed up the Chinese reaction to the implementation of the mandatory Manchu hairstyle by stating, “In fact, the Chinese people in those days revolted not because the country was on the verge of ruin, but because they had to wear queues.”
[edit] References
- Ebrey, Patricia B. China. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
- Xun, Lu. “The Story of Hair.” The Complete Stories of Lu Xun. Trans. Yang Xianyi and Gladys Tang. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982, 39-44.
