Remarkable Women in Ancient China (23)- Qiu Jin

Who is She? 

• A feminist, revolutionist and writer/poet 

Notable Life Events:

• Born in 1875 (end of the Qing dynasty) as Qiu Gui Jin, to a family of government officials- her great-grandfather was a provincial governor, her grandfather and father held official positions in Taiwan.  
• She got married in 1896 which was considered late for her era. It was an unhappy marriage as her husband was from a rich merchant family and only cared about enjoying himself 
• In 1903, she befriended the wife of one of her husband’s colleagues Wu Zhi Ying and became sworn sister with her and she raised a controversy when she dressed in men’s clothes when going to the cinema on the Mid-autumn festival. In the next year, she divorced her husband and using her own jewelry as well as sponsorship from Wu Zhi Ying, she went abroad to Japan to study- she got the opportunity because Dowager Empress Cixi was eager to modernise China after losing the first Sino-Japanese war
• In Japan, she was very active in revolutionary activities organised by fellow Chinese students, founded a few student groups and eventually got the position of strategist at the revolutionary society under two fellow students who founded the society on behalf of Sun Yat-sen who eventually led the revolution that successfully overthrew the Manchurian Qing Dynasty. It was also in Japan that she changed her name to Qiu Jin. 
• She returned to China in February 1906 in protest of the laws restricting the freedoms of Chinese students in Japan that came into effect in the previous year. In China, she founded the “Chinese female newspaper” that only had two issues and then co-founded a school for females with her cousin Xu Xi Lin.  
• In 1907 she took over as the head of a school for sport teachers that was founded by her cousin and others back in 1905 that was really the cover for a place that trained revolutionaries in military skills. In the same year, all the founders of the sports school were executed for assassinating their Manchu superiors and Qiu Jin was arrested in the same year. She could have fled but chose to stay at the female school where she was the principal and was apprehended there by Manchu authorities. She was tortured but refused to admit involvement in the scheme so the authorities used her own writings to incriminate her. She was beheaded in her home village at the age of 31. 

Why is she Remarkable? 

• According to Wikipedia, “she is considered a national heroine and a martyr of republicanism and feminism”.  

Moonlake’s Thoughts on her: 

I only knew of her as a writer/poet before I looked into her and she actually reminds me of Li Qing Zhao who is also from a family of high societal standings, highly educated, patriotic and a female poet.