bound foot

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A Thousand Years of Bound Feet
As evidenced by the creation of Lotus Shoes
A Thousand years of bound feet
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Footbinding A Revisionists View

• Song paintings indicate that most women had
  tianzu (heavenly or natural feet) rather than
  chanzu (bound beet) or sancun jinlian (the
  three-inch golden lotus)

Spinning Wheel, Wang Juzheng, Southern Song
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Occasionally, some paintings indicate that some
women had chanzu
Variety showBeating Flower Drum, anonymous,
Song
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How did it end?

• Anti-footbinding legislation and campaigns
• (from the perspective of gigantic history,
  public-national rhythm/vocies)
• The demise of all cultural symbols and values
  underpinning it, which were used to justify its
  practicality
• (from the perspective of miniature history,
  private-individual rhythy/voices)

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Anti-footbinding Rhetoric and Movement

• Began from late 19th to early 20th century
• Characterized by
• the absence of authentic female voice.
• Hubris of western (Christian) and modernized
  sense of gender equality and body freedom
• Newly invented terms denoting the liberation of
  bound feettiangzu (heavenly feet), fangzu (
  freed feet or letting feet out)
• Condemnation of the shame it brought to the
  patriarchal nation
• Claim that it hurts democracy

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• formation of a denigrating, insulting, and
  erroneous image of women
• Exaggeration of womens ordeal as inferior and
  oppressed sex and of mens position as superior
  and oppressive sex

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• Expression of the movements misogynist attitude
  toward women with bound feet

• Criminalization of Chanzu
• Creation of two diametrically opposed female
  subject position, highlighted by chanzu
  inspectors.

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Yaoniang wrapping her feet
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Chairs used to wrap feet
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Bound foot women in late Qing
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Bound feet women in Modern Times
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Only ten-millimeters long
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The size of Lotus Shoes
Bronze Sculpture
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Granny Wu inspected Maiden Liang Yings body
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The Origin Discourse

• Foodbindings origin footbinding in historical
  accounts and highbrow literature
• The origin issue emerged as a topic of literati
  conversation in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)

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• Myth and history are both myths.
• Most commonly accepted notion Yaoniangs wrapped
  feet in the court of Li Yu of the Southern Tang

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• Philologists and historians views
• Yang Shen of the Ming tried to push its origin
  from recent past to remote antiquity Han
• Hu Yinglin traced it back to the Six Dynasties
• Zhao Yi reviewed all existent theories based on
  textual evidence and favored the tenth century
  theory because the sources were closest to the
  practice practices of footbinding were localized
  and varied
• Qian Yong echoed the chronology suggested by Hu
  and Zhao

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Foodbinding in Fiction
Examples of Illustrated Fiction (left) Dream of
the Red Chamber (Honglou meng) (right) The Plum
in the Golden Vase (Jinping Mei)
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• Fiction provides information which is of dubious
  historical veracity
• Feet Contests (saijiao hui) in Datong caused
  the production of distinct lotus shoes with
  regional reputation
• Feet contest took various forms for various
  reasons and occasions
• Competitors were judged by the following
  attributes of their feet
• Small, slender (narrow), pointy, arched,
  fragrant, soft, correct (proper, balanced)
• Competition also promoted footbinding

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• Fiction depicting footbinding as an important
  element of culture
• Li YU (1610-80), Xianqing ouji (Casual
  Expressions of Idle Feeling), demonstrates the
  authors connoisseurship of bound feet.
• Connoisseur will watch, smell, touch, discern
  the bound feet
• Will also look at the full body in movement
• Li remains keen on the balance between beauty and
  function of bound feet.
• Bound feet, although small, serve their function
  in altering the gait and enhancing the grace of
  the woman

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• Wang Jingqi (1672-1726),
• Jottings on My Westward
• Journey (Dushutang xizheng
• suibi)
• Tiny-feet northern women
• were bandits with bound feet
• Their femininity did not
• impede their agility
• They would rob and
• kill northern men

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• Pu Songling (1640-1715), Vernacular Plays from
  Liaozhai (Liaozhai liqu ji)
• Beautiful women or courtesans wore high-heeled
  lotus shoes
• Footbinding was a fashion, identity, and
  representation of social status

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Fiction shows that footbinding is characterized
by

• Status distinctions
• Regional diversities north vs. south

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• Impacts of footbinding
• Caring of bound foot including a wide array of
  medical treatments powder, broth, ointment
• Eroticization of female body
• Mass production of lotus shoes