Qiu Jin

Qiū Jǐn was a anti-Qing Empire revolutionary, feminist and writer. She was executed after a failed uprising and today is considered a hero in China.
* Courtesy names: Xuánqīng and Jìngxióng
* Sobriquet: The Woman Knight of Mirror Lake

Biography

Born in Minhou, Fujian Province, Qiu grew up in Shānyīn Village, Shaoxing Subprefecture, Zhejiang Province. 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 known by her acquaintances for wearing Western male dress and for her left-wing ideology. She joined the , who at the time advocated the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and return of Chinese government to the Chinese people. 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.

She was an eloquent orator who spoke out for women's rights, such as the freedom to marry, freedom of education, and abolishment of . 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.

After an uprising led by her cousin Xu Xilin failed in July 1907, Qiu was arrested in her school. She was tortured by Qing officials in order to make her reveal secrets but did not succumb; a few days later she was publicly executed in her home village, Shānyīn, at the age of 31.

Qiu was immortalized in Republican 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 City.

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. Having received an exceptional education in classical literature, reflected in her writing of more traditional poetry 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” we read the following:

秋瑾〈日人石井君索和即用原韻〉


漫雲女子不英雄，萬裡乘風獨向東。

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 explain the metaphors as follows:

''line 4: "Your islands" translates "sandao," literally "three islands," referring to Honshū, 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 …''

Gallery

Works Cited

*Ayscough, Florence. ''Chinese Women: yesterday & to-day''. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
*Sun Chang, Kang-i and Haun Saussy ''Women writers of traditional China: an anthology of poetry and criticism''. Charles Kwong, associate editor; Anthony C. Yu and Yu-kung Kao, consulting editors. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.