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Qiu Jin (Chinese: 秋瑾; pinyin: Qiū Jǐn; November 8, 1875 – July 15, 1907), courtesy names Xuanqing (Chinese: 璿卿; pinyin:Xuánqīng) and Jingxiong (simplified Chinese: 竞雄; traditional Chinese: 競雄; pinyin: Jìngxióng), sobriquet Jianhu Nüxia (simplified Chinese: 鉴湖女侠; traditional Chinese: 鑑湖女俠; pinyin: Jiànhú Nǚxiá; literally: "Woman Knight of Mirror Lake"), was a Chinese revolutionary, feminist and writer. She was executed after a failed uprising against the Qing Dynasty. She is considered a national heroine in China.
| Qiu Jin | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 8 November 1875 |
| Died | 15 July 1907 (aged 31) |
Cause of death
| Decapitation |
Political party
| Guangfuhui Tongmenghui |
| Spouse(s) | Wang Tingjun (王廷鈞) |
| Children | Wang Yuande (王沅德) Wang Guifen (王桂芬) |
| Parents | Qiu Xinhou (秋信候) |
Born in Xiamen, Fujian, Qiu grew up in her ancestral home, Shanyin Village, Shaoxing, Zhejiang. During an unhappy marriage, Qiu came into contact with new ideas. She became a member of the Triads, who at the time advocated the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty and restoration of Han Chinese governance. In 1903 she decided to travel overseas and study in Japan, leaving her two children behind. Arriving in Japan in 1904, she first entered a Japanese language school in Surugadai, then later transferred to the Girls' Practical School in Kōjimachi, run by Shimoda Utako.[1] Qiu was fond of martial arts, and known by her acquaintances for wearing Western male dress and for her nationalist, anti-Manchu ideology. She joined the anti-Qing society Guangfuhui, led by Cai Yuanpei, which in 1905 joined together with a variety of overseas Chinese revolutionary groups to form the Tongmenghui, led bySun Yat-sen. Qiu was charged with responsibility for Zhejiang Province within this Revolutionary Alliance. The Chinese overseas students were divided between those who wanted an immediate return to China to join the ongoing revolution, and those who wanted to stay in Japan to prepare for the future. Qiu allied unquestioningly with the former group. At a meeting of Zhejiang students to debate the issue, she thrust a dagger into the podium and declared, "If I return to the motherland, surrender to the Manchu barbarians, and deceive the Han people, stab me with this dagger!" In 1906 she thus returned to China along with some 2,000 other students.[2]
Whilst still based in Tokyo, Qiu edited a journal by herself entitled Vernacular Journal (Baihua Bao). The journal published a number of issues using vernacular Chinese as a medium of revolutionary propaganda. In one issue, Qiu wrote a manifesto entitled "A Respectful Proclamation to China's 200 Million Women Comrades", in which she lamented the problems caused by bound feet and oppressive marriages, Qiu herself having suffered from both. She explained this in her article and received an overwhelmingly sympathetic response from her readers.[3]
Qiu felt that a better future for women lay under a Western-type government instead of the Qing government that was in power at the time. She joined forces with her cousin Xu Xilin and together they worked to unite many secret revolutionary societies to work together for the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty.
She was an eloquent orator who spoke out for women's rights, such as the freedom to marry, freedom of education, and abolishment of the practice of foot binding. In 1906 she founded a radical women's journal with another female poet, Xu Zihua, called China Women's News (Zhongguo nü bao), though it published only two issues before it was closed by the authorities.[4] In 1907 she became head of the Datong school in Shaoxing, ostensibly a school for sport teachers, but really intended for the military training of revolutionaries.
On July 6, 1907 Xu Xilin was caught by the authorities before a scheduled uprising in Anqing. He confessed his involvement under interrogation and was executed. Immediately after, on July 12, the authorities arrested Qiu at the school for girls where she was a principal. She was tortured but refused to admit her involvement in the plot, but they found incriminating documents and a few days later she was publicly beheaded in her home village, Shanyin, at the age of 31. Qiu was acknowledged immediately by the revolutionaries as a heroine and martyr, and she became a symbol of women's independence in China.
Qiu was immortalised in the Republic of China's popular consciousness and literature after her death. She is now buried beside West Lake in Hangzhou. The People's Republic of China established a museum for her in Shaoxing, named Qiu Jin's Former Residence (绍兴秋瑾故居).
Her life has been portrayed in two films, one simply entitled Qiu Jin released in 1983 and a second in 2011 named Jing Xiong Nüxia Qiu Jin (竞雄女侠秋瑾).
Literary works[edit]
While Qiu is mainly remembered in the West as revolutionary and feminist, one aspect of her life that gets overlooked is her poetry and essays, though owing to her early death, they are not great in number. Having received an exceptional education in classical literature, reflected in her writing of more traditional poetry (shi and ci) Qiu composed verse with a wide range of metaphors and allusions; mixing classical mythology along with revolutionary rhetoric.
For example, in a poem Ayscough translates as, Capping Rhymes with Sir Shih Ching From Sun's Root Land (147) we read the following:
| Chinese | English [5] |
|---|---|
漫云女子不英雄，
萬里乘風獨向東。 詩思一帆海空闊， 夢魂三島月玲瓏。 銅駝已陷悲回首， 汗馬終慚未有功。 如許傷心家國恨， 那堪客裡度春風。 |
Don't tell me women are not the stuff of heroes,
I alone rode over the East Sea's winds for ten thousand leagues. My poetic thoughts ever expand, like a sail between ocean and heaven. I dreamed of your three islands, all gems, all dazzling with moonlight. I grieve to think of the bronze camels, guardians of China, lost in thorns. Ashamed, I have done nothing; not one victory to my name. I simply make my war horse sweat. Grieving over my native land hurts my heart. So tell me; how can I spend these days here? A guest enjoying your spring winds? |
Editors Sun Chang and Saussy (642) explain the metaphors as follows:
- line 4: "Your islands" translates "sandao," literally "three islands," referring to Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, while omitting Hokkaido - an old fashion way of referring to Japan.
- line 6: ... the conditions of the bronze camels, symbolic guardians placed before the imperial palace, is traditionally considered to reflect the state of health of the ruling dynasty. But in Qiu's poetry, it reflects instead the state of health of China.
On leaving Beijing for Japan, she wrote a poem summarizing her life until that point:
| Chinese | English [6] |
|---|---|
日月无光天地昏，
沉沉女界有谁援。 钗环典质浮沧海， 骨肉分离出玉门。 放足湔除千载毒， 热心唤起百花魂。 可怜一幅鲛绡帕， 半是血痕半泪痕。 |
Sun and moon have no light left, earth is dark;
Our women's world is sunk so deep, who can help us? Jewelry sold to pay this trip across the seas, Cut off from my family I leave my native land. Unbinding my feet I clean out a thousand years of poison, With heated heart arouse all women's spirits. Alas, this delicate kerchief here Is half stained with blood, and half with tears. |
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