Mao Zedong’s John the Baptist, The Prophet of China’s Revolution

“In 1903, Zhou Shuren, a 22-year-old Chinese student studying in Japan on a government scholarship, committed an act of treason: He shaved off his queue, the ponytail that Chinese men wore as a symbol of submission to the emperor. … That he did. Under the pen name of Lu Xun, the writer spent the rest of his life devoted to bringing a revolution to China – both in letters and politics.”