[News Terms] China’s Pride Trampled, Apple’s ‘Byeonbal’

China is in an uproar over a photo of a man with braided hair posted on Apple's official website. The reason is that the man's hairstyle in the photo is reminiscent of the queue hairstyle from the Qing Dynasty.

A person with braided hair is smiling brightly while wearing a T-shirt with the Apple logo on it on the official Apple China website.
[Photo by Apple China Official Website Capture]

The queue refers to hair braided long and pulled back. It was an old Mongolian custom where the front and side hair were shaved off, and the remaining hair was braided and extended backward. Nomadic peoples such as the Khitan and Mongols, who conquered China, forced the queue hairstyle on the Han Chinese, with the practice being especially severe during the Qing Dynasty established by the Manchus.

The Qing Dynasty used the queue as a means of controlling the Han Chinese. The third emperor of the Qing Empire, Shunzhi, first enforced the queue on Han Chinese men in 1644. Due to intense resistance from the Han Chinese at the time, the queue was temporarily suspended, but the Qing Dynasty strongly reinstated it from 1645 and consistently enforced it for over 200 years. However, religious figures, children, and women were exempted from wearing the queue.

The disappearance of the queue in Han-centered Chinese society occurred after the establishment of the Republic of China. In 1911, Sun Yat-sen led the Xinhai Revolution, overthrowing the Qing Dynasty and ending the feudal monarchy system. Later that year, the "Cutting Queue Movement" gained momentum, and in March of the following year, the Provisional Government of the Republic of China ordered the cutting of queues.

Chinese people regard the Qing Dynasty's rule as a "dark history" during which their territory was seized and culture was forcibly imposed by foreign ethnic groups. This is why they view Apple's model photo as an act that tramples on China's pride.

Meanwhile, Apple clarified that the model in the photo is not Chinese but a Native American Apple employee.