1. Original text: It’s too late for the rest of my life, and most of the thrilling stories about hair come from hearing. Why did the early Qing Dynasty order Han people to shave their hair into braids, otherwise they would not be able to keep their hair? How about the late Qing Dynasty when overseas students cut off their braids abroad and had to put on fake braids to stay safe after returning home, etc., etc. Unseen. Therefore, when reading Lu Xun's novel "The Story of Hair", apart from being surprised and suddenly enlightened, it is really difficult to feel the pain. Moreover, I know that in the old society, barber workers, who were most closely related to hair, were despised by society. They were not even allowed to be included in the family tree, which meant that they were expelled from the clan, and they were very unfair. What’s more worth mentioning is that although when I was young, I read in progressive history books about how the Taiping Rebellion was just and righteous, it was only after I saw a couplet said to be written by Yi Wang Shi Dakai that I truly admired the heroes of the Taiping Rebellion. The couplet says:
Sharpen your beard and ask how many heads there are in the world;
Try it when you are ready to see how I can do it?
The antithesis of the couplet is both stable and stable. , creative and heroic, and when applied to a barber, it is even more imaginative and bizarre, out of intention and wonderful. While marveling at the uninhibited talent of this Taiping Heavenly Kingdom general, I also thought about the prince's feelings for barbers. Not only did he not look down upon the barbers like the upper class people in the old society, but he also pinned his arrogance on the world on their professional grace. It is true that things and people are equal and cordial.
Unexpectedly, I read a letter from a reader of "People's Daily" on March 2, which made me feel very uncomfortable for a while. That letter was related to barber workers. It is said that a barber worker in a barber shop in Jinan City refused to shave the head of a country boy, thinking that country people only deserved to have their heads shaved. After the hillbilly hit the wall and ran away, a pair of male and female barbers said: The hillbilly still wants to have a crew cut, no way! Don't look at what he looks like!...
Do hillbillies only deserve it? The question of shaving one’s head and what kind of person is worthy of having one’s head shaved is a profound question that I cannot answer. Since I couldn't answer it, I had no choice but to avoid it and ignore it. I only remember that there was a kind of punishment in ancient times called Kun. The method was to remove the hair from the body, which the ancient sages said was one of the things that parents did not dare to damage. It seemed to be combined with the punishment of hard labor. Those who get up are those who are using the tongs to pound Cheng Dan. But that was the Qin system, which was used for thousands of years, and was abolished at least after the Sui and Tang Dynasties. Nowadays, criminals in many countries also shave their heads, but this is not a punishment. I am afraid that it is mostly out of habit or for ease of identification. If we are allowed to use Dr. Hu Shi's research method and make a bold hypothesis, it may also be due to the hygiene in prisons in the old society. The conditions were not good, and I was afraid that the prisoners would get lice in their hair, so I might as well just let them wash their hands in Niu Shan. But I couldn't get it even if I asked for confirmation. I'm sorry, Dr. Hu Shi's textual research method can only learn half of it.
To this day, shaving one’s head is not a symbol of any political or personality defects, and it certainly does not mean that one is reluctant to shave one’s head because one’s body is hairy and one’s parents do not dare to harm it. It’s just to protect the head and be aesthetically pleasing, so some people don’t want to shave. The country guy in the reader's letter asked to have his head shaved because he was afraid it would be too cold. But from the point of view of the barber who thinks that a country boy has no way to shave his head, it seems that the appearance of a country boy is not good enough, so he only deserves to have his head shaved, but it is for the sake of appearance. Of course, the problem is not what standards, nor why this city barber looks down on country people (of course there is a lot to do with that), but why he can decide who should have a buzz cut and who can only have a shaved head. , can he do whatever he wants like this?
The reason is simple: the razor is in his hand.
This is power. Although it is just a razor, in the hand, it has a little power to shave the head. Within this power, whoever bumps into his hand will have to look at his face and listen to his words. If you want to shave your head, there's no way! The power is in his hands, so the country guy has no choice but to leave in anger, and he doesn't even dare to be angry. Fortunately, he only has such a small amount of power. If he had the power to employ people, allocate houses, or even have greater power, then not only the country people, but also more people would have no choice in more things.
I hope there will be few, if not none, people who have to play with a little bit of power. If you have power and you want to exercise power, and you want to do whatever you want, then at least let him be exposed in the readers' mail column until he is shaved off like a bald head. This is called trying to shave one's head, and others will also shave their heads.
2. He Manzi (1919--2009) was born in Fuyang, Zhejiang. Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, he worked as a newspaper editor and engaged in research on literary and artistic theory and modern literature. After the founding of New China, he successively served as editor-in-chief of Dazhong Bookstore, professor of the Chinese Department of Shanghai Aurora University, editor of Classical Literature Publishing House, and editor-reviewer of Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House. He was implicated in the Hu Feng incident in 1955. He Manzi has a wide range of academic fields, focusing mainly on the theoretical exploration of Chinese classical literature, especially ancient novels. He also studies history, especially the history of academic thought.