Qiu Jin

Qiu Jin (1874-1907) was a Chinese poet and activist. She left her husband and children and went to Japan in 1904. However, she returned to China in 1906. She was against traditional practices towards women such as foot-binding in the name of beautification of the foot and arranged marriages. She worked for women's reform and advocated revolutionary ideas. She founded Chinese Women's Journal.

Wisdom & Quotes

• Sun and moon have no light left,

Earth is dark;
Our women's world is sunk so
Deep, who can help us?
Jewelry sold to pay this trip
Across the seas,
Cut off from my family I leave my
Native land.
Unbinding my feet, I clean out a
Thousand years of poison,
With heated heart arouse all
Women's spirits.
Alas, this delicate kerchief here
Is half stained with blood, and
Half with tears.
- 'Regrets: Lines Written En Route to Japan'

• You and I should have got together long ago,

And shared our feelings
Looking out across these difficult times our
Spirits garner strength.
When you see my friends from the old days
Tell them I've scrubbed off all that old mud.

• Women must get educated and strive for their own independence; they can't just go on asking the men for everything. The young intellectuals are all chanting, 'Revolution, Revolution,' but I say the revolution will have to start in our homes, by achieving equal rights for women.
• Who is this person staring at me so sternly?

The material bones I bring from a former existence
Regret the flesh that covers them.
Once life is over, the body itself will be seen
To have been a deception.

• Autumn rain, autumn wind, they make one die of sorrow.

Arthur A Schomburg