Lu Xun Complete Works/en/toufa de gushi
The Story of Hair
头发的故事 von/by/par Lu Xun (鲁迅)
[The Story of Hair]
On a Sunday morning: 'October tenth -- the Double Tenth!' My acquaintance Mr. N said crossly: 'They're right not to remember!'
'What I admire most is the Double Tenth in Beijing. Morning: police come, hang the flag. Evening: taken down.'
'They've forgotten the commemoration, and the commemoration has forgotten them!'
'What pleases me most is that since the first Double Tenth, I'm no longer laughed at in the street. Hair is both treasure and curse for us Chinese. Our ancestors took it lightly -- but how many have suffered since!'
'During the revolution it was never about the nation -- it was about the queue. My grandmother said: those with full hair were killed by soldiers; those with queues by rebels!'
'I cut my queue abroad. Back in China I bought a false one -- two yuan. When they found it fake: cold laughter, accusations. I threw it away, wore Western clothes: Reckless fool! Fake foreign devil! I struck back with a walking stick. A Japanese scholar had said: the stick is their language.'
'As proctor at a middle school: colleagues shunned me, officials distrusted me -- all for lacking a queue. Students wanted to cut theirs. I said: Wait! They cut them anyway.'