Ah Q and Others/The Story of Hair
WHEN I tore off a sheet from the wall calendar Sunday morning and looked at it, my casual glance became a fixed gaze and I exclaimed to myself, "Ah, October 10! So today is the Double Ten Festival. And yet nothing is marked here!"
Hearing this observation, N, a senior of mine who happened to be calling, said to me in a displeased tone:
"They are right. Yes, they have forgotten the national holiday, but what of it? You happen to have remembered, but again what of it?"
This N was of a perverse temperament; he would get wrought up over things that did not matter and say things that embarrassed people. At such times I usually let him mumble on without putting in a word.
He continued: "I am most amused by the way they celebrate the Double Ten here in Peking. In the morning a policeman knocks on the door and says, 'Hang up the flag!' and you hear the reply, 'Yes, officer, we'll hang up the flag.' A citizen of the Republic emerges from the gate and perfunctorily hangs up a piece of cotton cloth with faded colors. In the evening it is taken down and the gate shut. Sometimes the flag is forgotten and left there until the next morning.
"It is true that they have forgotten to celebrate the national holiday; there is in fact very little for them to celebrate. I, for one, try not to remember, for to remember is to be reminded of things just before and after the first Double Ten, things I would rather forget. It is to see once again the faces of many old friends, some of whom, after years of toil and struggle, were quietly dispatched with bullets; others were imprisoned and thrown into the torture chamber; still others simply disappeared without leaving the slightest trace.
"Scorn, vilification, persecution, and murder were their lot when they lived; now their tombs, neglected and forgotten, are gradually being leveled by time . . . I have no courage to recall these things. Let us talk about something more pleasant."
A smile flitted across N's face as he said, stroking his head: "What pleases me most is that since the first Double Ten I am no longer insulted or laughed at when I go out on the street. Do you know, my friend, that hair has been at once the pet and the curse of us Chinese? That innumerable people have suffered untold miseries and tortures because of it?
"The ancients of very early times seemed to have attached little importance to hair. From the point of view of punishment, the most important thing is naturally the head, and accordingly decapitation was the severest punishment; next in importance are the reproductive organs, and so castration and sterilization came to be punishments much dreaded. But when it comes to cutting off the hair, this was considered of no consequence; though when one comes to think of it, innumerable people must have been insulted and persecuted by their fellows because of their tell-tale shaven heads.
"Before the Revolution we used to talk about the Ten Days of Yangchow, the Sack of Kiating, but to tell the truth, that was only propaganda. In reality, the Chinese opposed the Manchus not out of patriotism but because they rebelled at having to grow queues.
"Stubborn peasants were put to the sword, ministers from the former dynasty died comfortably in their beds, and the queue became an established institution—but then came the T'ai P'ing Rebellion. My grandmother used to tell me that it was most difficult to be a law-abiding citizen in those days: those who let their hair grow like the Longhairs were executed by the Government troops; those who grew queues like the Manchus were executed by the Longhairs.[1]
"I don't know how many Chinese suffered because of the hair which neither ached nor itched; suffered, were persecuted and destroyed."
N looked at the rafters thoughtfully and continued:
"And this unnecessary suffering eventually fell on my head . . . I cut off my queue when I went abroad to study; I had no other reason than that it was less of a bother to be without one. But I immediately became an object of hate to my fellow students, who wound up their queues and concealed them under their hats. The director of the educational mission was wroth and threatened to suspend my scholarship and to have me deported.
"But a few days later the director's own queue was forcibly cut off by a group of students, among whom was Tsou Jung, author of the Revolutionary Vanguard. He lost his scholarship because of this, returned to Shanghai and died in a Settlement prison. I suppose you have forgotten about this long ago.
"A few years later, reduced family circumstances made it necessary for me to get a job, so I returned to China. I got a false queue—it only cost two dollars in those days as soon as I landed at Shanghai, and went home wearing it. My mother did not say anything, but others studied it suspiciously and grunted when they found it to be false, citing decapitation as my proper punishment. One of my kinsmen considered informing against me, but was deterred by the thought that the treasonable revolutionaries might succeed after all.
"Then deciding that a false queue was not as open and honest as a real shaven head, I discarded it and walked out on the street in a foreign suit.
"Laughter and taunts followed me wherever I went. 'The reckless fool!' 'The fake foreign devil.'
"I discarded my foreign clothes and put on my long robe. But the laughter and taunts grew worse. At the end of my resources, I armed myself with a walking stick and used it vigorously a few times. The taunts ceased gradually, except when I ventured into strange territory where my stick had not yet been brought into play.
"But this expedient depressed me, and even now I recall it with shame. When I was studying in Japan I once read a newspaper item about a certain Dr. Honda who had traveled in China and the Malay States. Now, when this doctor, who spoke neither Chinese nor Malay, was asked how he got along without a knowledge of the native languages, he raised his walking stick and said that that was a language they all understood. I could not get over the feeling of anger and humiliation caused by this for many days. Who'd think that I would resort to it myself? The more ironic that these people did understand the language of the stick!
"In the first year of Hsüan T'ung [1909] I was proctor at the middle school of my native city. My colleagues avoided me, the authorities set spies on me; I felt as if I lived in an icehouse, as if I were standing on the execution ground; and all for no other reason than that I did not have a queue!
"One day some students came to see me in my room, saying, 'Sir, we want to cut off our queues.'
"'It won't do!' I said.
"'Which is better—to have a queue or not to have a queue?'
"'It is better to be without one . . . '
"'Then why do you say that it won't do?'
"'It is not worth it. It is wiser not to cut off your queues. Better wait a little while.'
"They did not say anything to this but they left unconvinced and cut off their queues anyway. It caused a great deal of talk. But I pretended to notice nothing and allowed them to come to class along with those who had queues.
"The disease spread; on the third day six queues were cut off among the students of the Normal School and on that same afternoon the six queueless students were expelled. These six students could not stay in the school and did not dare return home; they suffered like branded criminals until a month or two after the first Double Ten.
"I myself? I also was pardoned. I was only taunted a few times when I came to Peking the winter of the first year of the Republic, but later on the very ones that taunted me had their queues cut off by the police. From then on I was no longer insulted and taunted. But I have not ventured into the more conservative countrysides."
N's face softened with an air of satisfaction for a moment, but suddenly it clouded again as he said:
"Now you visionaries are advocating bobbed hair for women, again trying to cause senseless suffering! Are there not already girls who cannot pass their entrance examinations or are expelled because they have bobbed hair?
"Radical reforms? Where is your weapon? To work one's way through school? But, to do that, where are your factories?
"Better let them grow their hair again and get married and become good daughters-in-law. It is a blessing to forget; if they keep such ideas as equality and freedom in their heads, they will suffer all their lives!
"Let me put to you the question raised by Artzibasheff: You hold out the promise of a golden age to these people's children, but what do you have for these people themselves?
"Ah! before the lashes of nature's whip fall upon the bare back of China, China will remain China; she will not of her own will alter a single hair!
"You people have no poison fangs in your mouths; why must you put the label 'poisonous vipers' on your foreheads to invite destruction by the beggar snake-catchers?"
N's talk became more and more confused and difficult to follow, but as soon as he saw that I showed no interest in what he was saying he stood up to get his hat.
"Are you going?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied. "It is going to rain."
Silently I walked with him to the gate. "Tsai-chien!" he said, as he put on his hat. "Forgive me for disturbing you. But fortunately tomorrow won't be Double Ten any more and we can forget everything."
- ↑ The Manchu queue called for the shaving of a strip of about an inch all around the head, whereas the Chinese style of hair dressing before the Manchu conquest permitted the entire head of hair to grow long.