![]() (身體髮膚,受之父母,不敢毀傷,孝至始也。)”Īs a result of this ideology both men and women wound their hair into a bun or other various hairstyles. This idea is the quintessence of filial duty. ![]() “We are given our body, skin and hair from our parents which we ought not to damage. According to the Classic of Filial Piety, Confucius said Traditionally, adult Han Chinese did not cut their hair. It was also imposed on the Pingpu people in 1753 and Chaoxianzu people in the late 19th century. The Queue Order (simplified Chinese: 剃发令 traditional Chinese: 剃髮令 pinyin: tìfàlìng), or tonsure decree, was a series of laws violently imposed by the Qing (Manchu) dynasty in the seventeenth century. Wikipedia has a good description of the introduction of the Queue: (I note the man in the left photo has the long hair, but no shaved forehead.) ![]() You make a good point - the Han chinese and Manchus both had the tradition of long hair, but the big difference with the Manchu style was the shaved forhead. So there's a good chance at least some of the ladies looking at these photos already had a queue or two in their home! Today, thousands of Chinese barbers all over the country are doing a rushing business, and vast quantities of Chinese hair are being exported to be made into the rats and switches for European and American ladies. To the ladies who received these cards, the photos must have looked very strange and exotic. I'll put up pictures of the whole booklet another time, but it includes a standard greeting, space to write more if you want, and four photos including these. The Yorkshire-men were stationed here between 19, so this was the last year's Christmas card they send from Hong Kong. I wonder if local hair stylists still celebrate that day?īack to the Christmas card. Once again, the man-on-the-street didn't have any say in the matter - in December that year:Ī revolutionary edict abolishes pigtails and orders calendar reform - ~very widespread forced hair-queue cuttings by revolutionary troops: the traditional Chinese pigtail begins to disappear. With the final overthrow of the Qing dynasty (ie the Manchus) in 1911, the queue's days were numbered. One easy way to do this was to kill any man who didn't wear his hair in the approved Manchu style! When the Manchus conquered China, they forced the resident Han Chinese to adopt the same hairstyle.Īs new rulers, stamping out any remaining resistance to their rule was top of their to-do list. It was originally a Manchu hairstyle: shaved forehead, the rest of the hair uncut and braided into a pigtail. Its disappearance was big news at the time. For more than 200 years, all Chinese men had been forced to wear their hair in this style. The subject of the photos is the disappearance of the Chinese "Queue", the long pigtail you can see on the gentleman on the left. Why would a British infantryman be sending photos of Chinese gentlemen to his family and friends? These photos (and their titles!) have an unlikely source - they come from The King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry's Christmas cards, 1912.
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