Paschal Moon: A thousand years of poison

Last month, the New York Times woke up and realized that it has basically ignored women when it comes to publishing obituaries. Not because we don’t die in equal measure to men, but because we lack (in addition to that all-important Y-chromosome)…newsworthiness. So they’ve decided to publish belated obits in a feature they call “Overlooked”.

They started out by publishing a fistful of them, including one of the Chinese feminist, revolutionary and writer we know as Qiu Jin, sometimes styled China’s “Joan of Arc”, so you know her story doesn’t have a happy ending. Her pen name, Jianhu Nüxia, means “Woman Knight of Mirror Lake”, which gives you an idea of her character.

Born into a family of provincial gentry in 1875, one of her earliest revolutionary acts was to unbind her feet, following an arranged marriage and relocation to Beijing. She took up with other bluestockings, got into dressing in men’s clothes, learned swordsmanship and educated herself. At the age of 29 she sold her jewelry, left her family and moved to Japan, where she studied at a ladies’ university, joined anti-Manchu secret societies and wrote. When she returned to China, she founded and ran a publication that spoke out against (among other things) female foot-binding and arranged marriages.

She also learned how to make bombs.

Unsurprisingly, the revolutionary rhetoric and activities—which she took no pains to hide—brought her to the attention of the government. In 1907, she was captured and beheaded. She was 31.

I’m giving you two of her more militant poems, because Qiu speaks for me eloquently and succinctly.

“Capping Rhymes with Sir Shih Ching from Sun’s Root Land”*

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?

*I do not know who Sir Shih Ching is, or where you’d find Sun’s Root Land, but “capping rhymes” sounds like a very gangsta thing to do.

In this next poem, Qiu reflects on her life as an exile—she feels liberated, but has paid a heavy price for it.

“Preoccupation (Written while in Japan)”

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.