Qiu Jin

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Qiu Jin bigraphy, stories - Chinese poet, revolutionary

Qiu Jin : biography

November 8, 1875 – July 15, 1907

Qiu Jin ( November 8, 1875 – July 15, 1907), courtesy names Xuanqing () and Jingxiong (), sobriquet Jianhu Nüxia (), 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.

Gallery

Image:Qiujin.jpg|Statue of Qiu Jin beside West Lake in Hangzhou Image:QiuJin feminist revolutionary.jpg|Statue of Qiu Jin

Literary works

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 having died at such an early age, 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:

《日人石井君索和即用原韻》
Chinese translated by Zachary Jean Chartkoff}}

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:

《有怀——游日本时作》
Chinese last=Spence|first=Jonathan D.|title=The Gate of Heavenly Peace|year=1981|publisher=Penguin Books|pages=85}}

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.

Biography

Born in Xiamen, Fujian, Qiu grew up in her ancestral home, Shanyin Village, Shaoxing, Zhejiang. Married, Qiu found herself in contact with new ideas. In 1904 she decided to travel overseas and study in Japan, leaving her two children behind. She was fond of martial arts, and known by her acquaintances for wearing Western male dress and for her left-wing ideology. She joined the Triads, who at the time advocated the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty and restoration of Han Chinese governance. She joined the anti-Qing societies Guangfuhui, led by Cai Yuanpei, and the Tokyo-based Tongmenghui led by Sun Yat-sen. She returned to China in 1905.

After returning to China, Qiu started publishing a women’s magazine in which she encouraged women to gain financial independence through education and training in various professions. She encouraged women to resist oppression by their families and by the government. At the time it was still customary for women in China to have their feet bound at the age of five. The result of this practice was that the feet were small but crippled. Women’s freedom of movement was severely restricted and left them dependent on other people. Such helpless women were, however, more desired as wives, so their families continued the practice to protect their daughters’ future security.

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, in Shanghai. 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).