THE PIGTAIL IN CHINA

Otago Witness, Issue 3590, 2 January 1923, Page 41

THE PIGTAIL IN CHINA

EMPEROR’S SACRIFICE. ’[’he announcement that the ex-Emperor 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 ihe middle of the seventeenth century (1644) by the Manchu Ch’ing dynasty, who imposed various customs on a subjugated people. 15 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 or less spiral fashion, on the top

of the nead—wnile the women bound their •feet. Ihe Manchus proposed, firstly, that the men should alter their headgear and wear the queue, and, secondly, lhat the women should have natural, unbound feet. There was great opposition to both proposals, and ultimately it was found necessary to arrange a compromise. The queue was —by wholesale executions, one must regretfully admit —enforced for all men, women were allowed to have natural of bound feet, as they preferred. In practically all cases they preferred to bind fh TL feet. The queue was therefore introduced as a sign cf Manchu sovereignty, though in time it wholly lost its character. Few people knew why they wore it-, except that it was a custom, and when, in the early years of the twentieth century Chinese were 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-dav nine out of ten people cut their hair short. This, of course, uoes not applv to specialised classes, such as the priesthood; the Taoist priests still do their hair in spiral fashion on the top of the head whereas the Buddhist priests shave the’ head entirely. In the case of all other classes, the change is equally popular, and it is perfectly clear that witfi the opening up of the country there will be a complete disappearance of the queue altogether. Few will regret it. The oueue began to be formed when the boy was quite young. With the excetioin of six places on his head two on each side, one on the front and one on the hack —the hair was largely cut short, hut was allowed to grow in the places indicated In time the six coils wore braided separately, a.rd later they were wound together into the oueue as it is known to the Westerner. The hair had to be undone every night, and brushed very carefully every morning, and the process was long The actual wearing of the queue however, owing to the shaving of the hoacl otherwise than in the places indicarp'd, did not cause the wearer any■ inconvenience, even in the hot weather. The practice has been discarded because there is not reason for its continuance. Those few in China who regret its <1 “appearance are only the old school. rerhaps the last Chinese diplomatic 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 m the public eve. No Chinese with any Western knowledge or experience has, worn the enteue for years, and rt has been <t carded not because of any official edict of any sort, but merely as the result of personal preference.