Qiu Jin: Poet, Teacher, Revolutionary

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. 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

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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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

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 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 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. 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 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, 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.

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 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 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. 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 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

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 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 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 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 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 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

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 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 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. 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, 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 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.

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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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

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 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 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, 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, 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 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

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 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 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 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 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 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. 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. 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

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 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