#CHINESE QUEUE COSTUME HOW TO#

After the Manchus defeated the Ming dynasty army in the seventeenth century, the Ming dynasty fell and transitioned to the Qing dynasty, China’s final imperial dynasty. The queue is a Manchu hairstyle characterized by a shaved front portion and a distinctive tail of braided hair hanging down the back. In this case, the queue hairstyle of China tells the story of Chinese life under the Manchus between the seventeenth century and early twentieth century. The streets, we are told, were filled with piles of braided pigtails hacked off at the base.Nowadays, the main concern of hairstyles is simply aesthetics, but hairstyles often hold deep historical significance and reveal the traditions, cultures, and lives of the past. In 1911, when the new Republic of China outlawed the queue, we can imagine the relief of the men of the old cim as they joined hundreds of millions of ordinary Chinese in cutting off the hated sign of slavery. Hoste, the head of the CIM, decided to make Chinese dress optional depending on local circumstances. It would also, “in the eyes of the official class, tend to identify them with the anti-dynastic movement.” Finally, D. If they cut off their pigtails, it would be a “radical departure from a distinctive feature” of the mission. The CIM debated the problem for a whole year, canvassing the members throughout China. and a hindrance to the work.” The problem was the queue. The missionaries in the large cities found that “a foreigner in native dress is becoming an object of ridicule. Even Confucian scholars were wearing bowler hats. It was the day of the dollar watch and the bicycle Western things were all the rage. Depending on what they wore, they risked being confused with courtesans or sing-song girls or, worse, with sorceresses and the disreputable “singing people” who sang at weddings and funerals.īy 1907, China was changing fast, as the Qing government tottered toward revolution. The single women encountered particular prejudice. Henceforth I must never be guilty, for example, of taking my husband’s arm out of doors!” “The nearer we come to the Chinese in outward appearance,” she told them, “the more severely will any breach of propriety according to their standards be criticized. Hudson Taylor (Maria Dyer) grew up in China, she refused to wear Chinese clothes until she became matron of the CIM and had to set an example for younger women. Growing a queue involved shaving the front of one’s head every day, and until their hair grew in, the missionaries wore skullcaps with a false queue hanging down the back.įor the missionary women, Chinese dress was a real hardship. Cutting off one’s queue was a sign of sedition, punishable by death. This custom had been imposed by the “barbarian” Qing (or Manchu) dynasty, who had conquered China in the 1600s, as a sign of Chinese subservience. The male missionaries hated the queue, the pigtail that Chinese men wore. Nonetheless Chinese dress was a deeply divisive issue. In 1875, for example, two men and a Chinese evangelist walked across China in safety a few months after a British official named Margary-dressed in uniform whites, with a guard of soldiers-had been murdered. Indeed, this costume allowed cim pioneers to make some of the most prodigious, and dangerous, explorations of inland China. Such dress, they claimed, offered a sort of spiritual passport into the hearts and minds of the people. The CIM chose to dress like poor school teachers, a humble costume that befitted their goal of converting China from the bottom up.

#CHINESE QUEUE COSTUME HOW TO#

How to choose the right costume? The missionaries did not want to be confused with Buddhist priests in saffron robes, nor with upper-class Confucian scholars. In a hierarchical society like China, however, where every button, every feather, every ripple of silk, denoted one’s status, putting on Chinese clothes was no simple matter. the foreign appearance of chapels, and indeed the foreign air imparted to everything connected with their work has seriously hindered the rapid dissemination of the truth among the Chinese.” “The foreign dress and carriage of missionaries. 'Full Chinese dress” was one of Taylor’s hardest and fastest rules, a symbol of his intention to create an indigenous Chinese church shorn of foreign trappings. But this “simple” policy of Hudson Taylor had some surprising ramifications.

It seems so simple to adopt “the costume of the country” as a courtesy to one’s hosts.

When China Inland Mission workers first adopted Chinese dress, it seemed to other expatriates as if they were putting on the clothes of the enemy, “aping Chinese dress and manners.” Western suits, the diplomats said, offered protection and prestige, the power of the flag. IN THE GOSSIPY COLONIAL ENCLAVES of Shanghai and Hong Kong, “going native” caused outrage and hilarity.

Chinese queue costume