Renowned author Zhang Lijia dives into the life of China’s first feminist Qiu Jin for her upcoming book. In the China Books Review, she dives into her plans for the book and also reviews her previous successes, “Socialism Is Great!”: A Worker’s Memoir of the New China and Lotus: A Novel
The China Book Review:
So your next book coming out is a historical novel inspired by China’s first feminist, Qiu Jin . Can you tell us a little bit about her?
Oh, Qiu Jin was and is absolutely fabulous. She was the most colorful and extraordinary character in contemporary China. We’re talking about the end of the Qing dynasty. She was beheaded in 1907, four years before the downfall. In fact, she had a role in the downfall of the Qing. At that time, women were expected to stay at home but she had a public role. She ran a school to train insurgents trying to overthrow the Qing dynasty. They were Manchus, and the majority of the population were Han people like me.
Qiu Jin was a very colorful character, extraordinary. She loved to cross dress. She loved to dress up. She was a woman but she loved to put on men’s clothes and she was very into martial arts and she rode horses, championed for women to ban the foot binding, give up foot binding, and things like that.
Then she was beheaded in 1907 for organizing a military uprising. Because of her death changed public opinion, so many people began to stand against the Manchus. She was an absolutely wonderful character. She drank like a fish. She wrote her poems. Hopefully, after the publication, I hope I can sell the film rights.
Many young feminists, for example, in a few days, I’m going to see Lee Maizi. She organized a queer choir, and I’m going to see her on Saturday. Okay. Yes, people like her, she looks up to Qiu Jin, and one of the songs Qiu Jin composed herself is called nüquanzhige (女权之歌), the Song of the Feminist, and she, the lesson is we have to fight. I think we cannot just sit around waiting, praying that gender equality will be materialized. I think you have to fight for it. And I’m very pleased to see that young women still find interesting ways to do so in China.
More at the China Book Review.
(Typo corrected)
Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers’ request form.
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