"Alas! We can say that her hot heart was given, a whetstone, that the country might sharpen its dull sword" From a biography of Qiu Jin.

In this day and age, it’s easy to forget what being a hero really means. The DVD store has movies about drug dealers-turned-rappers-turned-martyrs and men triumphing over other men using fists, swords, and long-range sniper rifles. Few of these characters exhibit true courage – the will to fight against every injustice whether it emanate from the gilded walls of the Forbidden City or inside one’s ancestral home - taking fire from all sides. Qiu Jin, a writer, feminist, and revolutionary at the end of the Qing dynasty was a figure of rare and extraordinary strength, fighting for the very society she rebelled against. She was a true patriot who loved her country enough to fight to improve it.

Qiu Jin (秋瑾 | Qiūj?n) was born in Minhou in 1875 (many of the dates in her biography vary from account to account – some think she was born as late as 1879) to a reasonably well off family who insisted she receive a good education – a rarity for women at that time. She grew up in Shaoxing, riding horses, reading, and learning swordplay, and even as a child was encouraged to take part in the discussions her parents had with their friends.

When she was 21, Qiu was married to an older man. They had two children but Qiu found the relationship stifling. In 1904, she boarded a ship to Japan, leaving her family behind. On the ship, Qiu took the extraordinary measure of unbinding her own feet – a gruesomely bloody and painful act. Released from these bonds, she walked off the ship in Japan and into a new life of intellectual and revolutionary activity. She soon became known in intellectual circles for her habit of dressing like western men and her left-wing ideals. She wrote rousing articles supporting women’s rights, including education; and histories of Chinese women who had been struggled for these rights, in an effort to provide her contemporaries with role models.

Qiu joined the Triads – underground societies often engaged in criminal activity – who at the time favored overthrowing the increasingly corrupt Qing dynasty to allow Chinese people to govern themselves. She joined several other anti-Qing organizations, including Tongmenhui which was led by Sun Yat-sen, and in 1905, returned to China consumed with energy and a burning desire to bring down the Qing government.

Back in China, Qiu was a tireless advocate for women’s rights – the freedom to marry, receive an education, and the abolishment of the crippling foot binding customs. Another of her causes was financial independence for women, and so she advocated education and professional training. Qiu recognized the government was not the only entity inimical to the lives of women – societal standards also had to change; families continued to bind their daughter’s feet as it made them more valuable as wives. At a very young age, Qiu realized that women would always be fighting their battles on the home front as well as in the streets.

Qiu Jin Statuel, Photo: 刻意

She was a powerful writer and speaker and in 1906 founded a radical women’s paper in Shanghai. In 1907 she returned to Shaoxing, to a school for sports teachers that was, in fact, a training ground for militant revolutionaries. With her cousin Xu Xilin, Qiu worked to unite the many revolutionary splinter groups that were spread across that part of China.

Manchu authorities caught wind of the plot and in July 1907 crushed an uprising organized by Xu Xilin. Qiu was arrested shortly after and tortured for several days by Qing officials in an attempt to gain more information about the revolutionaries. She refused to confess any involvement in the plot but a search of the school produced incriminating documents. She held out until the Qing officials finally gave up and executed in her hometown. At the time of her beheading she was 31.

After her death Qiu’s story was passed on in literature and, in more recent years, movies and TV shows. Today, Qiu’s body lies near Hangzhou’s West Lake and there is a museum commemorating her in the city of Shaoxing. Beyond her actions, Qiu Jin’s legacy lives on in her words. She was a writer of astounding vision and power:

“I would now rouse women's essence, spirit, to rise as birds in flight over fields, leaving swiftly earths dust, that they may speedily cross the frontier into the great world of light and brilliance. I desire that they be leaders, awakened lions, advance messengers of learning and intelligence; that they may serve as rafts crossing cloudy ferries; as lamps in dark chambers.”

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