The real question is how can we make this to be popular in the West? I find it amazing.
Well, the key is definitely keep The Qing Manchus on charge. Since to get the Classical Han look back, all you need to do is for Sun Yat Sen and Chiang Kai Shek to actually lengthen their hair instead of cutting them in western style.The queue was seen as a symbol of Manchu rule (and thus, oppression). The only way to keep it around is to keep the Qing around while being strong enough to be able to enforce the hairstyle (if they have to compromise with the Han majority, the queue would have to go, seeing how quickly it was phased out once the Qing be overthrown).
The following essay offers a social history of the queue (bianzi 辮子). Originally a physical expression of submission, the braided queue was also a sign of repression. Attitudes towards the queue in China and more broadly were complex. In the early decades of the Qing dynasty the queue was the focus of resistance to Manchu dominance, and it became so again in the dying years of imperial rule. From the 1890s cutting the queue was an overt gesture of rebellion, by 1911 it was an act integral to political revolution.
Michael Godley's 'The End of the Queue' first appeared in the pages of the December 1994 issue of East Asian History. That journal is now published electronically and, like China Heritage Quarterly, it appears under the aegis of the Australian Centre on China in the World. An earlier essay by Michael Godley on Sun Yatsen's approach to minsheng and Chinese economics is also worth rereading in the context of the commemoration of and contestation over the Xinhai period and its contemporary relevance. See his 'Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: Sun Yatsen and the International Development of China', The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, 18 (July 1987): 109-125.—The Editor
The real question is how can we make this to be popular in the West? I find it amazing.
Huh? It was forced on the Han, who cut it as a sign of rebellion and freedom.Wasn't the queue subsequently adopted by the Han, who then resisted attempts to eliminate it?
If eastern hairstyles made their way west back when western men tended to grow their hair out super long (basically, late 17th-18th Centuries) they could possibly catch on. The Qing queue is less likely despite superficial similarities to 18th Century European queues because that would involve shaving off the top of their heads and would look unseemly, but the Han topknot is feasible since it's just a result of never cutting your hair ever and collecting it all at the top of your head."Western" hair styles became popular because of the ease of maintenance. Most men do not want to spend a half-hour a day doing their hair.
If women openly preferred the traditional hairstyles on men , it would have remained in style.
Huh? It was forced on the Han, who cut it as a sign of rebellion and freedom.
I know it was at first. However, IIRC, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, some resisted attempts to get rid of it.