In 1911, pigtails were banned in China because they were seen as a link with its feudal past.
China's 1911 Pigtail Ban Ended 267 Years of Oppression
When revolutionaries swept through Chinese cities in 1911, they didn't just topple a dynasty—they armed themselves with scissors. Men who'd worn braided queues their entire lives had them forcibly cut in the streets, often amid fireworks and celebration. The humble pigtail had become the most visible symbol of 267 years of Manchu rule, and it had to go.
A Hairstyle Imposed by Conquest
The queue wasn't a Chinese tradition—it was a Manchu one. In 1644, when Manchu forces conquered the Ming dynasty and established the Qing, they faced a question every conquering power confronts: how do you make the conquered people submit? The Qing regent Dorgon had an answer: force them to shave their heads and wear queues.
The policy was brutally simple. Han Chinese men were required to shave the front of their heads and braid the remaining hair into a long tail down their backs. Refusal meant death. The Qing slogan was chilling: "Keep your hair and lose your head, or keep your head and cut your hair." Massacres followed across China as the new rulers struck down anyone who refused.
From Symbol of Oppression to Revolutionary Target
For nearly three centuries, the queue was a constant reminder of subjugation. By the early 1900s, as the Qing dynasty weakened and revolutionary sentiment grew, the hairstyle became deeply unpopular. Chinese students studying abroad cut their queues off as acts of defiance. Revolutionary writings described the queue as a badge of slavery.
When the Xinhai Revolution erupted in October 1911, military officers leading the charge had already enthusiastically snipped off their own braids. The message was clear: the old order was finished. In December 1911, just before the last Qing emperor abdicated, revolutionary edicts formally abolished the obligation to wear the queue.
But the revolutionaries didn't wait for official decrees. In cities like Nanchang, local revolutionary governments offered free haircuts accompanied by celebratory fireworks. In other places, revolutionary troops simply cut the queues of passersby in the streets, whether they wanted it or not. The 1912 Hair-Cutting Edict made it official policy across the new Republic of China.
Resistance to the Chop
Not everyone celebrated. Traditional Confucian beliefs held that the body—including hair—was a gift from one's parents and shouldn't be altered. Some men who'd worn queues their entire lives felt the forced cutting was just another form of oppression, this time from revolutionaries rather than emperors. Protests erupted in some areas as traditionalists resisted the new order.
But resistance was futile. The queue had become so associated with the fallen Qing government that keeping it was seen as political defiance. Within a few years, the hairstyle that had defined Chinese men for 267 years had virtually disappeared. What had once required death threats to impose vanished almost overnight.
The pigtail ban of 1911 wasn't just about hair—it was about literally cutting ties with a feudal past. Every severed braid was a declaration: the age of emperors was over.