SIMILARITIES BETWEEN SIKHISM AND ANCIENT CHINESE CULTURE IN KEEPING LONG HAIR BEARDS AND TURBAN

It is interesting to note that there are similarities between Sikhism and the ancient Chinese culture of keeping long hair beards and surprising the keski (mini-turban)with a comb inserted in the hair. Anyone who is familiar with Chinese culture will note that ancient Chinese keep long hair and beards.

In "Xiao Jing" (principle of filial obedience ?) Confucius said(roughly translated) "body,hair and skin all came from parents, not dare to damage, that's the beginning of filial obedience(xiao).
Han Chinese were not allowed to cut their hair because of filial piety, all the way until the Qing dynasty forced them to adopt the Manchu shaved-head-and-pigtail look. That was part of the reason for the fierce Han oppostion to the pigtail policy during the early Qing, which resulted in several rebellions. Men would tie their hair up in a topknot (mini-turban) and enclose it with a headdress or cap (guan), while women would coif or plait it in various ways. However, shaving the beard or moustache was not considered unfilial, because one only developed them at puberty. Many Chinese men chose to grow out their beards and/or moustaches simply because they felt it looked good.

Imagine this - to the ancient Chinese, a person with short hair was probably an uncivilised barbarian!

I believe that if the Chinese had not been mentally prepared for the idea of cutting their hair by the experience of the Qing dynasty, they might still be leaving their hair long like they did in the Ming. The filial piety ethic, after all, is extremely strong in Chinese society and it took much coercion by the Manchus to separate filial piety ethically from the practice of keeping one's hair. It can probably be said that there was no such occupation as a barber in pre-Qing China. Today, the only people who still refuse to cut their hair or even shave their facial hair are the Sikhs, and they do so for cultural-religious reasons as well..

the "barbarian" peoples of the south, such as the Yue and the Chu, are known to have cut their hair short for practical reasons. But the Han people of the north continued to keep their hair uncut after expanding southwards - simply because cutting one's hair was considered not only unfilial but also uncivilised. Similarly, Europeans did not discard their clothing after coming to the tropics, even though the native peoples wore only loincloths or sarongs because of the heat and humidity. Instead, wearing next to nothing was considered a sign of barbarism itself. It was only from the Qing dynasty onwards that Chinese people got used to cutting their hair - or, in the case of men, shaving their heads since the hair on the back of the head was still left uncut to form the pigtail.

I forgot to point out that Buddhist monks and nuns were actually the first Chinese to shave their heads - and this was one of the big reasons why some Confucian scholars condemned Buddhism for being very unfilial... the other reason being the vow of celibacy which prevented a monk from carrying on the family line.]

Most Chinese nowadays do not adhere to the older custom because of modernisation and due to genetics they cannot grow a full beard like the sikhs.

Perhaps someday the old practice of keeping heards and long hair may be revived thus encouraging more Chinese to embrace Sikhism