THE PIGTAIL IN CHINA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18750, 2 January 1923, Page 14

THE PIGTAIL IN CHINA

EMPEROR’S SACRIFICE. The announcement that the ex-Eraperor of China has at last acquiesced in the general popular movement for the abandonment of the queue will cause many a, stouthearted loyalist Manchu —if such remains—a sense of sorrow at this weakening of Royalist allegiance to tradition (writes a correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph). The queue was introduced about the middle of the seventeenth century (1644) by the Manchu Ch’ing dynasty, who imposed various customs on a subjugated people. Up to the time the Chinese men had worn their hair very much as it is worn nowadays in Korea—in other words, in more pr less spiral fashion, on the top of the head —while the women bound their feet. The Manchus proposed, firstly, that the men should alter their headgear and wear the queue, and, secondly, that the women should have natural, unbound feet. There was great opposition to both proposals, and ultimately it was found necessary to arrange a compromjso. The queue was—by wholesale executions, one must regretfully admit—enforced for all men, and women were allowed to have natural or bound feet, as they preferred. In practically all cases they preferred to bind deft feet. The queue was therefore introduced as a sign of Manchu sovereignty, though in time, it wholly lost its character. Few people know why they wore it, except that it was a custom, and when in the early years of the twentieth century Chinese wore found bold enough to discard it, the change in fashion soon became popular. Since the establishment of the Republic the queue has largely disappeared: .save in the essentially country districts it is not in evidence to any extent, and in Peking to-day nine out of ten people cue their hair short. This, of course, uoes not apply to specialised classes, ■■ such as the priesthood; the Taoist priests still do their hair in spiral fashion on the top ot the head, whereas the Buddhist priests shave the head entirely. In the case ot all other classes, the change is equally popular, and it is perfectly clear that with the opening up of the country there will he a complete disappearance of the queue altogether. Few will regret it. The ououe began to be when the boy was quite young.. With the excotion, of six places on his head—two on oaoh side, one on the front and on o the back—the hair was largely cut short, but was allowed to grow in the -’"j dicated. In time the six coils were braided separately, and later they were wound together into the oueuo as it is known to the Westerner. The hair had to bo undone every night, and brushed very carefully everv morning, and the process was long The actual wearing of the queue however, owing to the shaving of . the head otherwise than in the places indicated. did not cause the wearer any- ■ inconvenience, even m the hot The practice has been discarded because there is not reason for its continuance. Those few in China who regret its disapnearance are only the old Pl haps the - lad, Chinese diplomatist In London to adhere to his queue was Mr Ivan Chen, who died a few years ago in Shanghai; he used to wear his wound round on the top of his head when in the public eye. No Chinese with any Western knowledge or experience the queue for years, and it haa bcen discorded not because of any official etlict of any sort but merely as -ho result of personal preference.