00:00 Intro and cold open: 1645, a notice goes up in Beijing 00:36 Why this episode is not a street, and not a treaty 01:01 Act One: how a custom became state law 02:52 Act Two: one man, and the edict he asked for 03:57 Act Two (cont.): why a court would govern hair 04:20 Act Three: a ruler — how obedience is measured 06:28 Act Three (cont.): Jiangyin, eighty-one days 07:28 Act Four: what it cost 09:29 Act Five: is it still there today 12:35 Closing: after 1912 13:14 About sylogs.com In 1645, the second year of the Shunzhi reign, a notice went up in Beijing: keep your head, lose your hair — keep your hair, lose your head. It went out from Beijing to Jiangyin, Jiading and Kunshan, and it landed on the head of every Chinese man for the next 267 years. Why did it appear? Who pushed it through? How was it enforced? What did the people who resisted pay for it? And how did it end? · One order: shaving the forelock was an old custom among northern peoples — so why did it become state policy · One man: Sun Zhixie, the official who put it forward, and what became of him · A ruler: the barber's carrying pole, the professional barbers, the edict reading "those who keep their hair will lose their heads" — how obedience was measured · The cost: Jiangyin, Jiading, Kunshan — and the other side of the ledger, written out too · Still there today: "a haircut in the first month kills your uncle", the barbershops in the hutongs, the barber sculptures on Wangfujing Full transcript, bibliography and further reading: https://sylogs.com/media ⚠️ The on-screen cards in this film are procedurally generated and the narration is synthetic speech. Some historical scenes are illustrative reconstructions and are labelled on screen. ⚠️ Some shots use public-domain or CC-licensed historical photographs and objects (a Shunzhi-era coin, a 19th-century portrait, a Qing woodblock print). Source and licence are printed on screen for every one of them. —— Shenzhou: China's Living Heritage China is often called a mysterious country. That is half true — and half our own doing. Outsiders see us through a layer of distance; we, just as often, fail to explain ourselves clearly. So the first thing this series does is not add another layer of mystery. It clears the gauze from both sides. Not a travel film, and not a history film. We go place to place, looking at where each name came from, what the place produced, what trade it did, who came out of it, and what it left behind. Next episode: water and fire in the Forbidden City — one storm, and where the water went. #Shenzhou #Beijing #ChineseHistory #QingDynasty ▶ Subscribe to the YouTube channel: one month of the paid tools on sylogs.com, free Log in at sylogs.com and comment "Subscribed on YouTube" on the video page to claim it.