Xu Zihua

Xu Zihua (Chinese: 徐自华; 1873–1935) was a Chinese poet.

She was educated at home and interested in poetry from an early age. She became a widow when she was still young and became the principal of Xunxi Girls' School. Both she and her sister Xu Yunhua were part of the South Association. In 1906, she hired Qiu Jin, an anti-Qing Empire revolutionary and poet, as an assistant. They quickly became close friends. Together with Qiu Jin, Xu Zihua started the magazine Chinese Women's News, which considered radical female-positive issues such as self-education, child education, Western-style health care, and economic self-sufficiency. Both Wu Zhiying and Xu Zihua contribute Qiu Jin a lot on her road of feminism, at the same time they were also affected by Qiu Jin's ideas about equality between men and women.

Qiu Jin was executed in 1907, after execution which was four months ago, Wu Zhiying sends a mail to Xu Zihua to discuss the process of Qiu Jin's wish(buried in Xiling) and help to arrange her funeral. Several thousand people came and it turned into a public protest. Both Xu Zihua and the other chief mourner, Wu Zhiying, were on the Qing government's wanted list. Still, Xu Zihua continued to compose poems and essays in Qiu Jin's memory. Between this process, her lovely daughter gets a serious illness called "Diphtheria". The tragedy Xu Zihua encountered greatly blow her body and mind. Her whole life after meeting Qiu Jin was relevant to revolutionary and poems which is about ideology and parting with her daughter and her best friend Qiu Jin. Her poetry is collected in Xu Zihua shiwen ji.

Dec. 9th, 1912, after reconstructs the Fengyuting, XuZihua requests revolutionary leader "Sun Zhongshan" to Condolence Qiu Jin's grave and writes her a brief couplet to compliment her Heroic deeds.

Xu Zihua died in 1935, leaving one surviving son, Mei Xin.[1]