new thread
I saw the Jet Li film "Fearless" today and was amazed by how the power of the martial arts was enhanced by the wasit (really butt length though) length hair!
Plus it was quite powerful on the whole to watch a film on the bigscreen in which 95% of the characters had waist/butt length braids.
Yet after doing some reading on the net it appears that the practice of shaving just the front part of the head and growing the back for life didn't appeal to everyone that it was forced on. i.e. they wanted to keep all of their hair-a pov that was often lost on me as I watched those magnificent long braids/tails.
Read this if you're interested (copied and pasted 4 your reading pleasure):
Queue Order (from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queue_Order)
" The Queue Order was a series of laws violently imposed by the Manchu invaders of China in the seventeenth century.
Traditionally, adult Chinese did not cut their hair. According to the Classic of Filial Piety, Confucius said "the body, hair and skin, are inherited from one's parents, do not dare damage them. This is the beginning of filial piety." (身体å‘肤，å—之父æ¯Â，ä¸Â敢æ¯Â伤，åÂÂ至始也。) Therefore both men and women wound their hair into a bundle or into various hairstyles. The Manchu men on the other hand shaved their forehead, leaving a long rattail called the queue.
When the Manchus broke through Shanhai Pass in 1644 (Chongzhen Year 17) they imposed the Queue Order in occupied territories, mandating that Chinese shave their head like the Manchus. This resulted in widespread resistance by the Chinese, and order was publicly revoked.
A year later, after the Manchus had reached South China, Dorgon reimposed the Queue Order, giving the Chinese 10 days to shave their hair into a queue, or face death. Their slogan was "Lose your hair and keep your head, otherwise, keep your hair and lose your head". The Chinese people resisted the order and the Manchu conquerors struck back with deadly force, massacring all who refused to shave their hair. The Three Massacres at Jiading and the Ten-day Massacre at Yangzhou are two of the most famous of such massacres, with death tolls at 50-200 thousand, and 100-800 thousand respectively. The imposition of this order was not uniform; it took up to 10 years for all of China to be brought under compliance.
The purpose of the Queue Order was to erase Chinese identity and culture. In this the Manchus are quite successful, as during the early years of the Republic, many people were unwilling to to cut off their queues as they thought they would be beheaded if they did, and ironically many had their queues forcibly removed. "
AND: (from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queue_(hairstyle))
" Chinese resistance to adopting the queue was widespread and bloody. The Chinese in Liaodong rebelled in 1622 and 1625 in response to the implementation of the mandatory hairstyle. The Manchus responded swiftly to this rebellion by murdering the educated elite and instituting a stricter separation between the Chinese and Manchus. In 1645, the adoption of the queue was taken a step further by the ruling Manchus when it was decreed that any man who did not adopt the Manchu hairstyle within ten days would be executed. The intellectual Lu Xun summed up the Chinese reaction to the implementation of the mandatory Manchu hairstyle by stating, “In fact, the Chinese people in those days revolted not because the country was on the verge of ruin, but because they had to wear queues.†"
I have always liked the queue hairstyle, it is so dramatic. The history you included Dean sure puts complaints here into perspective. "Forced" to have short hair now is a very different thing that it was then.
Elizabeth
Yes and no. At least no-one is beheaded anymore, but many men are still placed in a position to choose between their livelihood and their hair, which is wrong. I think there's always another job, or anohter way to make a living, but it isn't always easy.
So I can tell my parents that I wont cut my hair to preserve the Chinese tradition! Plus I think that is also one of the reason why there seems to be a movement to end hair restrictions here in Taiwan.. I read a newspaper article about how the reason schools and military alike impose mandatory haircuts is because back in the old days only guy that had haircuts were slaves. Normal Chinese never cut their hair, and in the Ching dynasty people only have their queue removed for bad things... like REALLY bad things. However with the whole Chang Kai Shek Authoriterian times, they did not want people to know they were free therefore during martial law longhair was illegal. However schools and military always imposed haircuts because it was to let them know that they are under their rule and they aren't free. That article ended with "save the hair from the blade" (back in the day when a condemmed recieves a stay, they would have to race to the place of execution to deliver the stay before its too late. So the guy usually yells "save the person from the blade" or something like that...)
It's ironic that around 1969. Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore banned entry of longhaired men and harrassed men with long hair in Singapore, citing opposition to the "corrupting" hippie culture which was gaining influence in thei area back then. Moreover long hair back then was a symbol of opposition to the Vietnam war and a pacifist symbol.
Men with long hair were made to wait at the end of the queue in post offices and other government service centres and were served last.
Men with long hair were stopped more frequently by the police and visitors with long hair entering the republic had the initials "LH" written at the back of their passport.
Monkey see, monkey do Malaysia followed suit soon after on male vistors with long hair but decided not to impose any restrictions on resident males with long hair, except in schools, the miliary, police and government service.
However, that changed in Singapore now and teh serve long hairs last in government service centres was reversed by the 1980s and longhairs have no more problems entering Singapore.
I guess they now reckon long haired men were "IT experts," who were to be welcomed in high-tech Singapore.
I guess the Kuomintang saw long hair as a throwback to the feudal era in China and the oppression of the Manchus, while the Communist in China saw it as a symbol of bourgeois decadence.
Perhaps it's time to relook at the roots and significance of long hair on men in Chinese history.
Charles
It doesnt matter why people oppose long hair. People give all kinds of excuse like its unclean or it represents something they didn't like. Okay it does represent something that the power that be doesnt like, and that is independent thought. There is a reason why most of all military cuts your hair when you get in, its a symbol of submission. The reason monks shave their head is the same too. When you run an authoriterian regime the last thing you want is independent thought, so you do your best to squash it, and banning long hair is one of the step.
Wouldn't you agree that the reason monks shave their heads it that is leads to vanity, and vanity leads to suffering?
Perhaps that may be so in the modern military influenced by the Victorian era in Britain but didn't the old warriors and soldiers in imperial China, Japan, Korea, etc also have long hair?
My father was in the military during the second world war and in the police after that and his opposition to long hair was based on it being a symbol of rebellion and "lack of discipline" which he felt was essential in the police and military.
So yes. You're right in this case that it's the desire for control but didn't the soldiers in the "ancient" period also have to follow disciplin and submit to commands of their superiors, even if they had long hair.
However, I disagree on the monk issue. The code of the Buddhists monkhood requires they shave their heads but this is because the original purpose of the monkhood is to be a community condusive to meditationa and spritual development to lessen one's attachments and cravings for worldly things so as to gain enlightenment.
On hair, there are two issues. One is to have no pride, vanity or ego resulting from it since it's not there, while the other is to be relieved of the burden of having to care for it and to keep it free from lice, which could affect others in the community and cause them inconvenience.
That of course applies to the Buddhist monkhood specifically, and to the Sanyasi Hindu monks though not to the Yogis who tend to have long hair.
Since joining the Buddhist monkhood is voluntary and monks are free to disrobe and leave the order at any time, I feel if people choose that calling, then they have accepted all that's required of them to be a monk.
On the other hand, isn't having to not cut one's hair during the "ancient" period in China because it is a gift from one's ancestors also coercive?
I recall reading some years back where in "ancient" Vietnam, a son who became a government official cut his long hair without
his father's permission and his father was so furious that he made him lie down on the floor in the family home in front of all his relatives and took a stick and beat him for cutting his hair.
Here it's the flip side where long hair was the means to exert control.
Also. Sometimes the demands of the music industry or fans force musicians to keep their hair long.
Some people may remember Gil O'Farim, a teen idol in Germany in the 1990s who had very long and beautiful hair. However, much like the many boy bands are used today to make the music recording companies, I guess Gil and his long hair was used the same way.
If you search Google on Gil O'Farim you'll find he's totally changed his image and apparently has rebelled against his past as a successful teen idol.
His hair is about shoulder length now and he produces a much harder type of rock music that teeny bopper stuff he produced or ws made to produce earlier.
Charles