QOTD

QOTD: ” The agitation for cutting the hair and altering the dress code did not go unchallenged. Some were opposed because it was contrary to “ancestral customs.” Former Grand Councilor Shixu, when told that the abolition of the queue would not necessarily lead to the extinction of the nation, retorted, “Though China might not perish, the Great Qing State would surely be done for”. However, the main opponents were not Manchu traditionalists but some Han merchants and manufacturers, who were guided not by politics but by economics and were more concerned about the costume than the hairstyle. The merchants feared that if the hair requirement were changed, so would the dress code, and as the Western style of dress was adopted, imported wool would replace native silk as a basic clothing material. Pawnshop operators, too, were worried that they might be stuck with a vast stock of traditional-style clothes, shoes, and caps that no one would want to redeem. In Hangzhou the silk, shoe, and hat merchants and the pawnbrokers met On 25 September 1910 to voice their concern over the effect that a change of dress requirements would have on their business. The General Chamber of Commerce in Wuchang expressed similar reservations. These groups’ anxieties reached the Qing court in the form of a memorial from the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce that warned that any change in the hairstyle or costume would ripple through the economy with devastating effect.” Manchus and Han by Edward J.M. Rhoads