Hairstyle and Authoritarianism In East Asia

Hairstyles are tightly controlled in North Korea

We all have probably heard the urban legend that all men in North Korea are required to style their hair in one, state-dictated, manner. After all, egalitarianism is the greatest fetish of a state that fashions itself as the only Communist utopia in the world. And what better way to prove you’re egalitarian than force each man in your nation to look the same – at least above the forehead.

This urban legend, in reality, is just that - a legend. It helps that information flow is tightly controlled in North Korea and it is very difficult to get true information regarding anything in North Korea. However, the reality is not far from legend. While not every North Korean man need to style their hair in one state-approved manner, there are only 28 styles that they have to choose from. While 28 is still a lot, it is striking that a decision as personal as hairstyle is not an individual’s to take in the totalitarian state.

What is even more striking is that this is not the first instance of states dictating hairstyles in Eastern parts of Asia. The Qing dynasty of China who wrested control of Beijing in the middle of 17^th century anticipated the North Korean eccentricity by over three centuries. The Qing were ethnically Manchu and ruled over a population which was predominantly Han Chinese.

The Manchu men shaved the crown of their heads, growing the rest of their hair long and plaiting it in a ‘queue’. Soon after arriving in Beijing, the Qing child-emperor’s regent, his uncle Dorgon, demanded that the former officials and soldiers of the earlier Ming dynasty do the same, eventually extending the order to all adult males. The choice was stark: get the queue or lose the head!

The Manchu Queue

While the totalitarian North Korea restricts choice to forge an ideal Communist man, the authoritarian Qing employed Confucian filial piety to justify their decision – ‘Now that the country is one family, the ruler is like a father and the people are like sons…How can they be different?’ It is peculiar that two different ideologies be used by two different regimes to achieve same goal – that of uniformity, and by extension, expression of loyalty towards the state and its (unpopular) leaders.

Again, the Manchu Qing were also not the first to impose restrictions on hairstyles. It seems that hair styles represented affiliation to a tribal confederation or ethnic group in East Asia. This very visual symbol of affiliation was often one of the firsts to be attacked when one group subjugated the other. To show submission to Han Sui dynasty, the people of Turfan undid their queues, as did the Goturks upon surrendering to the Tang dynasty. The Ming reinstated Han Chinese rule over China proper after overthrowing the Mongol Yuan dynasty, and the first Ming emperor imposed a ban on the Mongol hairstyle. The penalty for Mongol hairstyle was castration – both for the client and his barber – while their families were exiled!

The people’s resentment towards dictated hairstyles seems to be as great as the state’s eagerness to enforce them. We can’t gauge the magnitude of this resentment in the North Korean society, given the inherent dangers of speaking one’s mind freely and the aforementioned control of state over information flow. But we do know that the Manchu queue was abhorred – both personally and politically. Not only did the queue signified subjugation to a “foreign” dynasty, shaving the crown of head also went against teachings of Confucius, who advocated against any harm to “our body, skin, and hair since we inherit it from our parents.”

The resistance to the Qing and the queue was the fiercest in the Southern parts of China. The Han Chinese were not as opposed to plaiting the hair on the back of head into braids as they were to shaving the crown. The Qing realized it soon and shaving of crown became the most visible symbol of loyalty towards the Qing state in the eyes of Qing themselves.

Cutting of queue remained the most prominent way to portray one’s displeasure towards the Qing state throughout their reign. In the twilight years of the Qing rule, queue cutting became a statement of political defiance. The Han Chinese, aghast at the humiliation served to their millennia old civilization by barbarous European powers in the late 19^th century, were fed up with the Qing dynasty and their hairstyle. They were mocked for it overseas and the Chinese modernisers argued that it posed a danger to anyone operating industrial machinery.

A Chinese physician from southern Chinese province of Guangdong cut his queue in defiance, as did a teenage farmer from Hunan. The physician from Guangdong was Sun Yat Sen, founder of Kuomintang (KMT) and responsible for the overthrow of Qing dynasty, while the Hunanese farmer was no other than Mao Zedong, a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party and the founder of People’s Republic of China (PRC). The winds of change were hard to miss, and even the last Qing emperor Puyi cut his queue and donned western suit a decade after Sun Yat Sen had overthrown his dynasty.

The enforced styling of hair is thus as old as it is unpopular. The Authoritarian’s desire to force his subjects into conformity is as strong as the subject’s abhorrence of the unwelcome imposition. The non-compliance with the state sanctioned hairstyle is not merely a personal statement of fashion but also a political statement of defiance in East Asia. Will we see a charismatic leader sporting Mullet or dreadlocks displace the Kim dynasty from North Korea? Only time will tell.