China: Plaiting a man's queue or pigtail, Beijing, late Qing Dynasty (c.1885)

The queue (Chinese: Biànzi) was a male hairstyle worn by the Manchus from central Manchuria and later imposed on the Han Chinese during the Qing dynasty. The hairstyle consisted of the hair on the front of the head being shaved off above the temples every ten days and the rest of the hair braided into a long ponytail.

The hairstyle was compulsory for all males and the penalty for not having it was execution as it was considered treason. In the early 1910s, after the fall of the Qing dynasty, the Chinese no longer had to wear the queue. The last Emperor of China, Puyi, cut off his queue in 1922.

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