The Story of Qiu Jin

2008 Humanities Project!!

The AMAZING story behind female Chinese Revolutionary Qiu Jin (...or at least part of it)

Produced by Irene, Amanda, Alex, Elizabeth, and Devon

Qiu Jin was a writer, feminist, and anti-Qing revolutionary that lived from the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century. Not one to be supressed by an old, conservative husband, she dressed, much to her husband's embarrassment, in Western men's clothing, and secretly learned fencing and horseback riding. Finally, she left her family and traveled alone to Japan; on the way, she unbound her feet in protest of the unequal treatment of women in China.

In Japan, she met Sun Yat-sen, the leader of the Restoration Society, which would eventually overthrow the Qing Dynasty. She was the organization's first female member and later became one of it's leaders. After returning to China, she settled in the city of Shaoxing, where she became the principal of the Datong School for girls. It was also the secret training facility for revolutionary armies. Qiu Jin also established a secret bomb factory, and along with some of her sworn sisters, established a women's newspaper.

Then she joined forces with her cousin, Xu Xilin, also a leader in the Restoration Society, and they planned an armed revolt, the storming of an arsenal, for July 17, 1907. However, another member of the Restoration Society was captured by the government, and under torture, produced a list of rebel names, which included their own. Xu Xilin immediately moved the date of the revolt up.

After assassinating the governor of Anhui Province, Xu Xilin was arrested and soon executed. Qiu soon heard news of her cousin's death, as well as news that government troops were coming to arrest her. She and her students discussed many different plans of action, but in the end, she chose to stay behind to be arrested along with six other people. Even tortured, Qiu Jin refused to divulge any information to the Qing government, and she was publicly executed on July 15, 1907.

Her impacts are numerous. She was obviously a driving force of the revolution against the corrupt Qing government, but she was also a feminist and writer. Her poems and writings spoke of the unequal treatment of women and the revolutionary cause. She was reburied five years later when the Qing government fell, and Sun Yat-sen was made president. He spoke at her reburial and called her a "true female hero." Her reburial site would also become a forum for public protest in the future.

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• Qiu
• Jin
• zapitsalex
• chinese
• revolutionary
• humanities
• 2008
• ninja
• jeff

[theawkwardsisterhood]

haha, that was so much fun. but for some reason no one got it. =(