July 9, 2019 • 24 mins
“The old traditions are extremely shameful: Women treated as if they were no different from cattle! The light of dawn now brings the tide of civilization. We’ll take the lead in independence. Let’s eradicate our slavery, become proficient in knowledge and learning. We’ll shoulder that responsibility. We women heroes of our nation will never betray its trust!” – from “A Fighting Song for Women’s Rights” by Qiu Jin.
Qiu Jin was nationalist, anti-Qing and anti-Manchu, and pro-women’s liberation. She did not mince her words when speaking about the failure of the Qing government, the oppression of women in China, and her discontent with foreign dominance in China. She was executed for her attempt to overthrow the Qing Dynasty, and she’s since attained hero status in Chinese history. How do her challenges of gender roles, advocacy for women’s rights, and criticism of government resonate when it comes to revolutionary efforts today?
Follow Unpopular on social media!
Twitter: @_unpopularshow
Instagram: @unpopularshow
Facebook: @ThisIsUnpopular
Email us at unpopular@iheartmedia.com.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Revolution is the stuff of extremists, people who know they're
right about the issue at hand and will stop at nothing,
not violence, not murder, to achieve drastic political or social change.
Only a moral people advocate for revolution. It's for people
who refuse to uphold the fundamentally human banner of cooperation,
(00:23):
or at least compromise and pursue a more reasonable goal.
Revolution is for people who don't understand that change doesn't
happen overnight. It's for attention seekers and want to be despots.
It's for people who act brashly and deny the virtues
of logic and patience. Revolution does not provide long term solutions.
(00:45):
It's a thoughtless and unrefined way for zealous to rest
power from the hands of those who truly deserve it.
Revolution is scary, it's dangerous. It does not work. Revolution
is wrong. Revolution is for people who are unwilling to settle.
It's for people who choose not to be silently subject
(01:06):
to the exploitation of authorities with unchecked power. Revolution is
really not that extreme when lives are at stake. It's
for people who's justified. Rage has reached a tipping point.
For people who rebel because complying has benefited others and
harmed them. Revolution is the action of people who have
realized that their silences will not protect them. As activists
(01:28):
and writer Audrey Lord put it, it's for people who
have hope, for those who are down to make sacrifices
to ensure a better future, people who don't care to
concede to lesser evils and pity based handouts. Revolution is
not for people who are arrogant and impulsive, but for
those who are selfless and far sighted. The heated emotions
(01:49):
that incite revolution are not a fault, but a call
to action and catalysts for significant shifts in thought and practice.
Revolution is a response to problems so pervasive and so
long lasting that those who suffer recognize the need for
disruption and upheaval. It's easy to criticize the means and
(02:10):
end of revolution, and rightfully so, But what was the cause?
I'm e's deaf coote and this is unpopular a show
about people in history who did not let the threat
of persecution keep them from speaking truth to power. Today,
(02:31):
we'll take time to look at the life of Chio Jean,
who has been called the Chinese Joan of Arc for
her defiance of gender norms, her revolutionary spirit, and her
legendary status in China's history. But Chio Jean's story is
not Joan of ARC's story, nor is it necessary to
downplay Chio Jean's life and achievements by positioning her as
(02:52):
a woman already famously mythologized in white history, modified by
her nationality or ethnicity. If you can't tell already how
much this kind of phrasing bothers me, then I'm telling
you how much it bothers me, especially since it typically
operates so that a figure who's already mothered historically is
left unnamed, relegated to the shadow of a person deemed
(03:14):
more worthy of recognition or mythical status. Feelings aside, Joe
has mentioned Joan of Arc in her writing and drew
inspiration from the stories of heroins in history. My point
is Cho Jean's story is one that could have only
taken place once Cheo Jean was born, which may have
been on November eight, eight seventy five, or could have
(03:36):
been in the following years. It is known that Cho
Jean was born named Chio guard Jean during the Qing dynasty,
and Shaman Fuji a Province, China. She was part of
a genty family who were respected but declining. Her father
was a lower level civil servant, a job that required
(03:58):
the family to pick up and move a lot. In
the eighteen eighties and eighteen nineties. Chose Mom instilled in
her a love for learning, providing Show with private teachers
and books. Among the text Show read were Confucian classics,
texts about the French Revolution, Enlightenment works, and novels. But
(04:19):
the political climate that Show lived in also provided her
with a form of non academic education and provided her
with reason to challenge the Ching dynasty's rule. In Show's
early years, China was nearing the end of his traditional period,
and it was a hot bit of revolt and dramatic change.
Missionaries and the Chinese were founding girls schools, and some
(04:42):
people were criticizing the practice of footbinding, a custom that
symbolized status and beauty for girls and women in China.
From the mid eighteenth century to the early nineteenth century,
Foreign nations like the British, French, Dutch, and Americans squeezed
a lot of concessions out of the Chinese government it
and operated with impunity in the country. After the Opium War.
(05:04):
More Chinese ports were open for foreign trade. Foreigners were
granted more travel in China. Foreigners were able to govern
themselves in China. Valuable natural resources were taken out of China,
and foreign nations could station warships and use military force
for their economic interests in the country. Meanwhile, many Chinese
people suffered from poverty and famine, and death tolls in
(05:28):
war and social conflicts ran high. People like revolutionary Soon
Yacht Sin expressed their anger with the Ching dynasty through rebellion, reform,
and revolution. Cho's families appreciation for poetry also influenced her,
as Cho began writing poetry when she was a child,
(05:48):
and it was an art form she used throughout her
life to express her personal feelings as well as her
political beliefs and aspirations. Chinu or talented women contributed a
lot to literature and were admired in Chinese history, and
by the late Imperial era, they were exploring new methods
of expression. Many elite women wanted the label of China.
(06:13):
When Cho was young, she wrote poems and lyrics are
on subjects that women poets had traditionally written about throughout
Chinese history, like flowers, solitude, friendship, and domestic activities. Cho's
feet were most likely bound, as was customary for young
girls of many social classes in the Chain period, though
(06:34):
they may not have been found that tightly. Still, Cho
began training in the martial arts early on. She enjoyed
riding horses and brandishing swords. She studied Chinese martial folk
heroines like Hua Mulan, whom Cho viewed as a role model,
and she began to think of herself as a knight
errant who could save her country from the plague of
(06:55):
foreign domination. In her early poems on women heroes, she
critiques that accepted social orders that said women were inferior
to men. In one series of poems she wrote titled
on Ican Gi, she wrote, this, banished into this dusty world,
what a shame to be a man shouldering dagger axes.
(07:17):
Young beauties became generals. Now the names of the loyal
and filial belonged to women. History forever speaks shame of
Zuo Ning Nin, zualt Ning nine, or Zua long Yu
was a Ming dynasty general who was executed in Her
(07:39):
father arranged her marriage to Wong Tana, the son of
a wealthy merchant and philanthropist, and the couple eventually had
two children together, but Wong spent a lot of time
gambling and in brothels. He was described in contemporary accounts
as a talentless and cowardly guy, and Chow Jean was
(08:00):
not happy in her marriage. Her desire to become a
famous poet faltered. She described this distress in her poetry
alas they sent me off by fourth to be mere
rouge and powder. How I despise it, she wrote. But
while she was in this unhappy marriage, she continued to
(08:21):
dream of better times for China and denounced the intrusion
of foreigners. When the family moved to Beijing in the
early nineteen hundreds, in the wake of the Boxer Rebellion
and anti foreign and anti Christian uprising, Joe met other
women who were concerned about the socio political climate in China.
She became close with calligrapher woot s Ying, and she
(08:44):
delved deeper into ideas of women's liberation, democracy and revolution.
She read the works of Leon Chaw, a scholar and
reformist who said that the modern education of women in
China should not be impractical, but should be Western and
politically conscious, as that was what would help build a
(09:04):
stronger nation. He and other writers calling for women's emancipation
still confined women to roles as good wives and good mothers,
and relied on the workings of patriarchy just under the
guise of nationalism. Wrestling with her longing to serve her
country and expectations for her to serve as a mother
and wife, she wrote this in a poem, war flames
(09:28):
in the north. When will it all end? I hear
the fighting at sea continues unabated, Like the woman of Chisha,
I worry about my country in vain. It's hard to
trade kerchief and dress for a helmet. In nineteen o four,
chose disdain for her family life and her yearning for education,
as well as social and political change in China led
(09:51):
her to move to Japan, where many Chinese intellectuals and
reformers were moving at the time. She sold her jury
to fund the trip. In hopped on a boat from
Tangin to Japan, leaving her son, daughter, and husband behind.
Pretty soon, for Chio, the patriarchal family structure would come
(10:11):
to signify women's oppression and education. Women's emancipation and revolution
would take front and center in her life. We're going
to take a quick break, but when we get back,
will trace cho Jean's transformation into a revolutionary In situations
(10:38):
where there's a lot of social or political division or conflict,
when people are rebelling against the status quo, many people
will call for civility or respectability. Recent calls for civility
in the US often reinforce an intentionally oppressive standard of
appropriateness that makes people who are challenging a system look
like unruly agitators who are unworthy of support. They require
(11:03):
a person to water down or silence their descent and
favor of a method that has likely been used in
the past improved largely fruitless. So many people decry this
kind of policing, as it implies that people must maintain
the status quo in order to be respected and heard.
People calling for civility are often not just calling for politeness.
(11:25):
They are saying, in so many words, that it is
inappropriate for those who are speaking up to express themselves
in any way that they deem unacceptable. In the US,
the word civility can bring to mind histories of cultural assimilation,
discrimination and destruction, classism and racism, and political manipulation and
around the world, calls for order, tolerance cultures, of course,
(11:48):
silence and strict regulation of protest limit the effectiveness of
challenges to the status quo. A figure people like to
bring up often for his civil disobedience and calls for
peace and cooperation is Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Neither
King's intellect, nor his wide ranging appeal, nor his respectability
(12:08):
saved him from being assassinated when he was just thirty
nine years old. Uncivil or well mannered, either can be
dangerous when a person who has radical ideas opposes or
defies an established order. Sun and Moon have no more light.
(12:29):
Earth is dark. Our woman's world has sunk so deep.
Who can help us? Jewelry sold to pay for this
trip across the seas. Cut off from my family, I
leave my native land. I'm binding my feet. I clean
out a thousand years of poison with hot heart aroused
all women's spirits. Alas this delicate kerchief here is half
(12:51):
stained with blood and half with tears. Those are chose
words from her poem called Regrets Lines, written in route
to Japan. When Cho got to Japan, she changed her
name from Chio Guay Jean to just Cho Jean, removing
the guay, which meant boudoir and also was used to
(13:12):
refer to daughters and women in the inner chambers. She
began attending a Japanese language school in Tokyo and later
went to a vocational school that offered a teacher training
program for Chinese women. She frequently cross dressed, a practice
that some have said she did for attention for herself
and her revolutionary efforts, but that was also the embodiment
(13:33):
of her feelings of freedom and gender expression and defiance
of the role Chinese tradition had prescribed women. Feminist activism
in Japan had taken root, with people like Fukuda Hideko
leading the charge. In Japan, Cho found a community that
promoted radical thinking. She gave lectures on the oppression of
women under patriarchy and the oppression of the Chinese people
(13:56):
under man to rule, able to appeal to more women,
including those who could not read through public speaking. China
was failing, she said, subject to the whims of foreign
nations and to Manchu misrule, and it was a women's
duty to lift themselves out of oppression and ignorance, to
save the nation and establish a New Republic. She said
(14:18):
in a lecture addressed to Chinese women, Dear listeners, do
you realize that our nation is about to perish? Man
cannot be sure of their own survival, so how can
we continue to rely on them? If we do not
lift ourselves up now, it will truly be too late
once the nation has perished. Joe also learned to make bombs,
(14:39):
practice fencing and marksmanship, and she began writing journalistic pieces.
She became involved in anti Manchoo secret society's like the
Restoration Society and the Revolutionary Alliance. The Manchoos were the
ethnic group that ruled in the Chain dynasty. Joe founded
the Baihuapao, or vernacular journal, in which she published articles
(15:02):
and support of women's education and in opposition to footbinding
and the patriarchal system that kept women powerless. Joe advocated
for publishing her work in a common Chinese vernacular that
was easy to understand, as many people in China did
not have access to much education. Through the journal, she
sought to encourage revolution. In nineteen o five, Joe returned
(15:27):
to China briefly, where she linked up with her cousin
she she Lean, who was also involved in anteaching organizations,
but she did go back to Japan for a little while,
where she completed her teacher training course, did military drills
and target practice, and protested the Japanese government along with
other Chinese students. As the government had been pressured by
(15:48):
the Ching dynasty to shut down the revolutionary activity of
Chinese students in Japan. Activists and writer Chin Tien Hua
drowned himself in protest of the regulations that the Japanese
Ministry of Education Nation had imposed, an act that had
a profound effect on Chio. She decided to take Chen's
advice and go back to China to fight against the
(16:09):
Ching dynasty. She wrote in a poem on her way
back to China, there is no wine that can dissolve
my sorrow for the nation. The current crisis demands persons
of extraordinary talents. Even if it takes the blood of
hundreds of thousands of people, We will have to turn
the whole world around by our efforts. We're going to
(16:34):
pause here for a quick break, and when we return,
we'll look at Cho's last days in her home country.
H Cho returned to China for good in late nineteen
oh five or early nineteen oh six. There she published
(16:57):
a short lived Chinese Women's Journal, which she wrote more
vernacular articles exhorting women to fight for their freedom and
save China from the Manchu government. She taught in a
girls school, encouraging other teachers to become politically active and
take up the causes of nationalism and women's emancipation. After
the Chinese government encouraged the creation of schools teaching traditional
(17:21):
and modern subjects, she she Leane founded a school for
young women called the Da Tong Normal School in Chiao Shin,
Jayjiang Province, which was really a headquarters for training revolutionaries.
In February of nineteen oh seven, when she she Lean
left for the Ahoi Province to lead the police academy,
(17:42):
she became director of the school as y'all led the
revolutionaries and military drills at the school. She also connected
many revolutionary organizations and recruited activists to join the anti
Manchu fight. Cho and she she Lean began planning and
uprising against the dynasty scheduled for July, but authorities quickly
(18:04):
got word that a rebellion would happen soon. In early July,
she she Lean was executed after murdering the governor of
Anhoi Province, on Ming, who was a Manchu. Cho learned
of his death days later in a newspaper, but she
refused to flee to safety. When she found out troops
were being sent to Datong School, she told teachers and
(18:26):
students to hide themselves in their weapons. Still, she stayed
at the school. Only a week after she she Lean died,
a Ching militia unit arrested Cho and other revolutionaries, interrogated
her about her anti Ching activities and tortured her. She
refused to give up any info or confess, but the
authorities gathered evidence of her revolutionary thought and activities, including
(18:50):
her writing. As proof of her criminality, she was beheaded
on July fift nineteen oh seven. Exactly what crime she
was accused of is I'm clear, but it was judged
to be punishable as treason. She was buried and moved
a couple of times before her remains were buried in
their final location near Westlake in Hanzo. Despite Cho's death,
(19:15):
anti Ching sentiment was still strong in China. Other revolutionaries
continued the work of overthrowing the government. In nineteen twelve,
the last Emperor of China, Poui, was forced to abdicate
the throne, though this did not in any way read
the country of political turmoil. In that same year, the
new government banned footbinding, though the band wasn't wholly enforced,
(19:38):
and the practice continued in some areas of China. Some
critics say her belief in her ability to drastically change
Chinese society and politics by overthrowing the Ching dynasty was
foolish and bright eyed. Some consider her death a pointless
sacrifice and that she could have saved herself. Some view
her as a martyr who was not a fraid to
(20:00):
put her life on the line to secure the future
of China and ensure women's liberation. Cho's friend Woods Ying
wrote the following about Chow after her death. Although this
lady scholar was always fond of acting impulsively, she did
not die because she was a criminal. The officials may
have been violent and rapacious, but they would not have
(20:21):
gone to such cruel lengths. It must be that there
was someone who held a private grudge against her and
plotted her downfall by availing himself of this case against
some revolutionaries in order to ingratiate himself with his superiors.
So it is not just the officials who are to
be blamed alas, and this is called the period of
(20:43):
preparation for constitutional government. Revolutions and revolutionaries are not always
bastions of moral decency and collective progress. Revolutions can be
carried out in service of racist, classist, and prejudice causes
(21:06):
and perpetuate abuses that they did not seek to abolish.
Just because someone or some group is fighting for revolution
for a cause they believe is moral does not mean
it is without fault or universally just. Attempts at revolution
are not guaranteed to succeed in the outcome of revolution
is not predictable or guaranteed to meet expectations. As with
(21:28):
any other attempt to change established values, procedures, people, and institutions,
the effects of revolution are pliable and require constant attention
and care. The Manchu suppression of Han culture and anti
Manchu sentiment fueld rebellion and eventual revolution. Revolution is not
as cut and dry as a victory of the good
(21:49):
over the bad, the right over the wrong. ChIL Jean's
influences and ideals were also complex. She championed issues of
women's liberation, challenge the boundaries, and expectations of ender and
opposed Western imperialism and seeing rulership while promoting a Western
style constitutional government, and her writing, full of allusions to
(22:10):
stories in world history and evidence of her struggle in
parsing her gender expression and gender norms, showed just how
heavily the issues of the world weighed on her and
how she believed change was necessary to end suffering. So
she worked with conviction and trying to advance Chinese women's
rights and tearing down an incompetent, cruel, and illegitimate government.
(22:33):
For that, her writings and well the mythologizing of the
circumstances of her execution, Cho's life is amplified in Chinese
and to a lesser extent, world history. There is no master,
moral compass, or crystal ball that can tell us whether
our revolutionary goals are right in the grand scheme of history.
(22:58):
We can look to Cheo Jean's story for guidance and
using meaningful education and analysis, language and direct action to
envision and implement thoughtful change that wants. Seemed impossible. To
be a revolutionary is to wade into uncharted orders with
no life jacket. But when a place you're leaving behind
(23:18):
is a place of gratuitous personal and societal hardship. The
expanse ahead seems more promising than frightening. We'll see you
again next week with another episode of Unpopular. Our producer
(23:43):
is Andrew Howard. Holly Fry and Christopher Hasiotis are our
executive producers, and you can subscribe to the show on
Apple Podcasts, the iHeart Radio app, or wherever you get
your podcasts. Two League Tween two
Revolution is the stuff of extremists, people who know they're
right about the issue at hand and will stop at nothing,
not violence, not murder, to achieve drastic political or social change.
Only a moral people advocate for revolution. It's for people
who refuse to uphold the fundamentally human banner of cooperation,
(00:23):
or at least compromise and pursue a more reasonable goal.
Revolution is for people who don't understand that change doesn't
happen overnight. It's for attention seekers and want to be despots.
It's for people who act brashly and deny the virtues
of logic and patience. Revolution does not provide long term solutions.
(00:45):
It's a thoughtless and unrefined way for zealous to rest
power from the hands of those who truly deserve it.
Revolution is scary, it's dangerous. It does not work. Revolution
is wrong. Revolution is for people who are unwilling to settle.
It's for people who choose not to be silently subject
(01:06):
to the exploitation of authorities with unchecked power. Revolution is
really not that extreme when lives are at stake. It's
for people who's justified. Rage has reached a tipping point.
For people who rebel because complying has benefited others and
harmed them. Revolution is the action of people who have
realized that their silences will not protect them. As activists
(01:28):
and writer Audrey Lord put it, it's for people who
have hope, for those who are down to make sacrifices
to ensure a better future, people who don't care to
concede to lesser evils and pity based handouts. Revolution is
not for people who are arrogant and impulsive, but for
those who are selfless and far sighted. The heated emotions
(01:49):
that incite revolution are not a fault, but a call
to action and catalysts for significant shifts in thought and practice.
Revolution is a response to problems so pervasive and so
long lasting that those who suffer recognize the need for
disruption and upheaval. It's easy to criticize the means and
(02:10):
end of revolution, and rightfully so, But what was the cause?
I'm e's deaf coote and this is unpopular a show
about people in history who did not let the threat
of persecution keep them from speaking truth to power. Today,
(02:31):
we'll take time to look at the life of Chio Jean,
who has been called the Chinese Joan of Arc for
her defiance of gender norms, her revolutionary spirit, and her
legendary status in China's history. But Chio Jean's story is
not Joan of ARC's story, nor is it necessary to
downplay Chio Jean's life and achievements by positioning her as
(02:52):
a woman already famously mythologized in white history, modified by
her nationality or ethnicity. If you can't tell already how
much this kind of phrasing bothers me, then I'm telling
you how much it bothers me, especially since it typically
operates so that a figure who's already mothered historically is
left unnamed, relegated to the shadow of a person deemed
(03:14):
more worthy of recognition or mythical status. Feelings aside, Joe
has mentioned Joan of Arc in her writing and drew
inspiration from the stories of heroins in history. My point
is Cho Jean's story is one that could have only
taken place once Cheo Jean was born, which may have
been on November eight, eight seventy five, or could have
(03:36):
been in the following years. It is known that Cho
Jean was born named Chio guard Jean during the Qing dynasty,
and Shaman Fuji a Province, China. She was part of
a genty family who were respected but declining. Her father
was a lower level civil servant, a job that required
(03:58):
the family to pick up and move a lot. In
the eighteen eighties and eighteen nineties. Chose Mom instilled in
her a love for learning, providing Show with private teachers
and books. Among the text Show read were Confucian classics,
texts about the French Revolution, Enlightenment works, and novels. But
(04:19):
the political climate that Show lived in also provided her
with a form of non academic education and provided her
with reason to challenge the Ching dynasty's rule. In Show's
early years, China was nearing the end of his traditional period,
and it was a hot bit of revolt and dramatic change.
Missionaries and the Chinese were founding girls schools, and some
(04:42):
people were criticizing the practice of footbinding, a custom that
symbolized status and beauty for girls and women in China.
From the mid eighteenth century to the early nineteenth century,
Foreign nations like the British, French, Dutch, and Americans squeezed
a lot of concessions out of the Chinese government it
and operated with impunity in the country. After the Opium War.
(05:04):
More Chinese ports were open for foreign trade. Foreigners were
granted more travel in China. Foreigners were able to govern
themselves in China. Valuable natural resources were taken out of China,
and foreign nations could station warships and use military force
for their economic interests in the country. Meanwhile, many Chinese
people suffered from poverty and famine, and death tolls in
(05:28):
war and social conflicts ran high. People like revolutionary Soon
Yacht Sin expressed their anger with the Ching dynasty through rebellion, reform,
and revolution. Cho's families appreciation for poetry also influenced her,
as Cho began writing poetry when she was a child,
(05:48):
and it was an art form she used throughout her
life to express her personal feelings as well as her
political beliefs and aspirations. Chinu or talented women contributed a
lot to literature and were admired in Chinese history, and
by the late Imperial era, they were exploring new methods
of expression. Many elite women wanted the label of China.
(06:13):
When Cho was young, she wrote poems and lyrics are
on subjects that women poets had traditionally written about throughout
Chinese history, like flowers, solitude, friendship, and domestic activities. Cho's
feet were most likely bound, as was customary for young
girls of many social classes in the Chain period, though
(06:34):
they may not have been found that tightly. Still, Cho
began training in the martial arts early on. She enjoyed
riding horses and brandishing swords. She studied Chinese martial folk
heroines like Hua Mulan, whom Cho viewed as a role model,
and she began to think of herself as a knight
errant who could save her country from the plague of
(06:55):
foreign domination. In her early poems on women heroes, she
critiques that accepted social orders that said women were inferior
to men. In one series of poems she wrote titled
on Ican Gi, she wrote, this, banished into this dusty world,
what a shame to be a man shouldering dagger axes.
(07:17):
Young beauties became generals. Now the names of the loyal
and filial belonged to women. History forever speaks shame of
Zuo Ning Nin, zualt Ning nine, or Zua long Yu
was a Ming dynasty general who was executed in Her
(07:39):
father arranged her marriage to Wong Tana, the son of
a wealthy merchant and philanthropist, and the couple eventually had
two children together, but Wong spent a lot of time
gambling and in brothels. He was described in contemporary accounts
as a talentless and cowardly guy, and Chow Jean was
(08:00):
not happy in her marriage. Her desire to become a
famous poet faltered. She described this distress in her poetry
alas they sent me off by fourth to be mere
rouge and powder. How I despise it, she wrote. But
while she was in this unhappy marriage, she continued to
(08:21):
dream of better times for China and denounced the intrusion
of foreigners. When the family moved to Beijing in the
early nineteen hundreds, in the wake of the Boxer Rebellion
and anti foreign and anti Christian uprising, Joe met other
women who were concerned about the socio political climate in China.
She became close with calligrapher woot s Ying, and she
(08:44):
delved deeper into ideas of women's liberation, democracy and revolution.
She read the works of Leon Chaw, a scholar and
reformist who said that the modern education of women in
China should not be impractical, but should be Western and
politically conscious, as that was what would help build a
(09:04):
stronger nation. He and other writers calling for women's emancipation
still confined women to roles as good wives and good mothers,
and relied on the workings of patriarchy just under the
guise of nationalism. Wrestling with her longing to serve her
country and expectations for her to serve as a mother
and wife, she wrote this in a poem, war flames
(09:28):
in the north. When will it all end? I hear
the fighting at sea continues unabated, Like the woman of Chisha,
I worry about my country in vain. It's hard to
trade kerchief and dress for a helmet. In nineteen o four,
chose disdain for her family life and her yearning for education,
as well as social and political change in China led
(09:51):
her to move to Japan, where many Chinese intellectuals and
reformers were moving at the time. She sold her jury
to fund the trip. In hopped on a boat from
Tangin to Japan, leaving her son, daughter, and husband behind.
Pretty soon, for Chio, the patriarchal family structure would come
(10:11):
to signify women's oppression and education. Women's emancipation and revolution
would take front and center in her life. We're going
to take a quick break, but when we get back,
will trace cho Jean's transformation into a revolutionary In situations
(10:38):
where there's a lot of social or political division or conflict,
when people are rebelling against the status quo, many people
will call for civility or respectability. Recent calls for civility
in the US often reinforce an intentionally oppressive standard of
appropriateness that makes people who are challenging a system look
like unruly agitators who are unworthy of support. They require
(11:03):
a person to water down or silence their descent and
favor of a method that has likely been used in
the past improved largely fruitless. So many people decry this
kind of policing, as it implies that people must maintain
the status quo in order to be respected and heard.
People calling for civility are often not just calling for politeness.
(11:25):
They are saying, in so many words, that it is
inappropriate for those who are speaking up to express themselves
in any way that they deem unacceptable. In the US,
the word civility can bring to mind histories of cultural assimilation,
discrimination and destruction, classism and racism, and political manipulation and
around the world, calls for order, tolerance cultures, of course,
(11:48):
silence and strict regulation of protest limit the effectiveness of
challenges to the status quo. A figure people like to
bring up often for his civil disobedience and calls for
peace and cooperation is Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Neither
King's intellect, nor his wide ranging appeal, nor his respectability
(12:08):
saved him from being assassinated when he was just thirty
nine years old. Uncivil or well mannered, either can be
dangerous when a person who has radical ideas opposes or
defies an established order. Sun and Moon have no more light.
(12:29):
Earth is dark. Our woman's world has sunk so deep.
Who can help us? Jewelry sold to pay for this
trip across the seas. Cut off from my family, I
leave my native land. I'm binding my feet. I clean
out a thousand years of poison with hot heart aroused
all women's spirits. Alas this delicate kerchief here is half
(12:51):
stained with blood and half with tears. Those are chose
words from her poem called Regrets Lines, written in route
to Japan. When Cho got to Japan, she changed her
name from Chio Guay Jean to just Cho Jean, removing
the guay, which meant boudoir and also was used to
(13:12):
refer to daughters and women in the inner chambers. She
began attending a Japanese language school in Tokyo and later
went to a vocational school that offered a teacher training
program for Chinese women. She frequently cross dressed, a practice
that some have said she did for attention for herself
and her revolutionary efforts, but that was also the embodiment
(13:33):
of her feelings of freedom and gender expression and defiance
of the role Chinese tradition had prescribed women. Feminist activism
in Japan had taken root, with people like Fukuda Hideko
leading the charge. In Japan, Cho found a community that
promoted radical thinking. She gave lectures on the oppression of
women under patriarchy and the oppression of the Chinese people
(13:56):
under man to rule, able to appeal to more women,
including those who could not read through public speaking. China
was failing, she said, subject to the whims of foreign
nations and to Manchu misrule, and it was a women's
duty to lift themselves out of oppression and ignorance, to
save the nation and establish a New Republic. She said
(14:18):
in a lecture addressed to Chinese women, Dear listeners, do
you realize that our nation is about to perish? Man
cannot be sure of their own survival, so how can
we continue to rely on them? If we do not
lift ourselves up now, it will truly be too late
once the nation has perished. Joe also learned to make bombs,
(14:39):
practice fencing and marksmanship, and she began writing journalistic pieces.
She became involved in anti Manchoo secret society's like the
Restoration Society and the Revolutionary Alliance. The Manchoos were the
ethnic group that ruled in the Chain dynasty. Joe founded
the Baihuapao, or vernacular journal, in which she published articles
(15:02):
and support of women's education and in opposition to footbinding
and the patriarchal system that kept women powerless. Joe advocated
for publishing her work in a common Chinese vernacular that
was easy to understand, as many people in China did
not have access to much education. Through the journal, she
sought to encourage revolution. In nineteen o five, Joe returned
(15:27):
to China briefly, where she linked up with her cousin
she she Lean, who was also involved in anteaching organizations,
but she did go back to Japan for a little while,
where she completed her teacher training course, did military drills
and target practice, and protested the Japanese government along with
other Chinese students. As the government had been pressured by
(15:48):
the Ching dynasty to shut down the revolutionary activity of
Chinese students in Japan. Activists and writer Chin Tien Hua
drowned himself in protest of the regulations that the Japanese
Ministry of Education Nation had imposed, an act that had
a profound effect on Chio. She decided to take Chen's
advice and go back to China to fight against the
(16:09):
Ching dynasty. She wrote in a poem on her way
back to China, there is no wine that can dissolve
my sorrow for the nation. The current crisis demands persons
of extraordinary talents. Even if it takes the blood of
hundreds of thousands of people, We will have to turn
the whole world around by our efforts. We're going to
(16:34):
pause here for a quick break, and when we return,
we'll look at Cho's last days in her home country.
H Cho returned to China for good in late nineteen
oh five or early nineteen oh six. There she published
(16:57):
a short lived Chinese Women's Journal, which she wrote more
vernacular articles exhorting women to fight for their freedom and
save China from the Manchu government. She taught in a
girls school, encouraging other teachers to become politically active and
take up the causes of nationalism and women's emancipation. After
the Chinese government encouraged the creation of schools teaching traditional
(17:21):
and modern subjects, she she Leane founded a school for
young women called the Da Tong Normal School in Chiao Shin,
Jayjiang Province, which was really a headquarters for training revolutionaries.
In February of nineteen oh seven, when she she Lean
left for the Ahoi Province to lead the police academy,
(17:42):
she became director of the school as y'all led the
revolutionaries and military drills at the school. She also connected
many revolutionary organizations and recruited activists to join the anti
Manchu fight. Cho and she she Lean began planning and
uprising against the dynasty scheduled for July, but authorities quickly
(18:04):
got word that a rebellion would happen soon. In early July,
she she Lean was executed after murdering the governor of
Anhoi Province, on Ming, who was a Manchu. Cho learned
of his death days later in a newspaper, but she
refused to flee to safety. When she found out troops
were being sent to Datong School, she told teachers and
(18:26):
students to hide themselves in their weapons. Still, she stayed
at the school. Only a week after she she Lean died,
a Ching militia unit arrested Cho and other revolutionaries, interrogated
her about her anti Ching activities and tortured her. She
refused to give up any info or confess, but the
authorities gathered evidence of her revolutionary thought and activities, including
(18:50):
her writing. As proof of her criminality, she was beheaded
on July fift nineteen oh seven. Exactly what crime she
was accused of is I'm clear, but it was judged
to be punishable as treason. She was buried and moved
a couple of times before her remains were buried in
their final location near Westlake in Hanzo. Despite Cho's death,
(19:15):
anti Ching sentiment was still strong in China. Other revolutionaries
continued the work of overthrowing the government. In nineteen twelve,
the last Emperor of China, Poui, was forced to abdicate
the throne, though this did not in any way read
the country of political turmoil. In that same year, the
new government banned footbinding, though the band wasn't wholly enforced,
(19:38):
and the practice continued in some areas of China. Some
critics say her belief in her ability to drastically change
Chinese society and politics by overthrowing the Ching dynasty was
foolish and bright eyed. Some consider her death a pointless
sacrifice and that she could have saved herself. Some view
her as a martyr who was not a fraid to
(20:00):
put her life on the line to secure the future
of China and ensure women's liberation. Cho's friend Woods Ying
wrote the following about Chow after her death. Although this
lady scholar was always fond of acting impulsively, she did
not die because she was a criminal. The officials may
have been violent and rapacious, but they would not have
(20:21):
gone to such cruel lengths. It must be that there
was someone who held a private grudge against her and
plotted her downfall by availing himself of this case against
some revolutionaries in order to ingratiate himself with his superiors.
So it is not just the officials who are to
be blamed alas, and this is called the period of
(20:43):
preparation for constitutional government. Revolutions and revolutionaries are not always
bastions of moral decency and collective progress. Revolutions can be
carried out in service of racist, classist, and prejudice causes
(21:06):
and perpetuate abuses that they did not seek to abolish.
Just because someone or some group is fighting for revolution
for a cause they believe is moral does not mean
it is without fault or universally just. Attempts at revolution
are not guaranteed to succeed in the outcome of revolution
is not predictable or guaranteed to meet expectations. As with
(21:28):
any other attempt to change established values, procedures, people, and institutions,
the effects of revolution are pliable and require constant attention
and care. The Manchu suppression of Han culture and anti
Manchu sentiment fueld rebellion and eventual revolution. Revolution is not
as cut and dry as a victory of the good
(21:49):
over the bad, the right over the wrong. ChIL Jean's
influences and ideals were also complex. She championed issues of
women's liberation, challenge the boundaries, and expectations of ender and
opposed Western imperialism and seeing rulership while promoting a Western
style constitutional government, and her writing, full of allusions to
(22:10):
stories in world history and evidence of her struggle in
parsing her gender expression and gender norms, showed just how
heavily the issues of the world weighed on her and
how she believed change was necessary to end suffering. So
she worked with conviction and trying to advance Chinese women's
rights and tearing down an incompetent, cruel, and illegitimate government.
(22:33):
For that, her writings and well the mythologizing of the
circumstances of her execution, Cho's life is amplified in Chinese
and to a lesser extent, world history. There is no master,
moral compass, or crystal ball that can tell us whether
our revolutionary goals are right in the grand scheme of history.
(22:58):
We can look to Cheo Jean's story for guidance and
using meaningful education and analysis, language and direct action to
envision and implement thoughtful change that wants. Seemed impossible. To
be a revolutionary is to wade into uncharted orders with
no life jacket. But when a place you're leaving behind
(23:18):
is a place of gratuitous personal and societal hardship. The
expanse ahead seems more promising than frightening. We'll see you
again next week with another episode of Unpopular. Our producer
(23:43):
is Andrew Howard. Holly Fry and Christopher Hasiotis are our
executive producers, and you can subscribe to the show on
Apple Podcasts, the iHeart Radio app, or wherever you get
your podcasts. Two League Tween two
Unpopular News
Host
Yves Jeffcoat
Show Links
AboutPopular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.