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A Thousand years of bound feet

A Thousand Years of Bound Feet. As evidenced by the creation of “Lotus Shoes”. A Thousand years of bound feet . Footbinding: A Revisionist’s View.

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A Thousand years of bound feet

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  1. A Thousand Years of Bound Feet As evidenced by the creation of “Lotus Shoes” A Thousand years of bound feet

  2. Footbinding: A Revisionist’s 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

  3. Occasionally, some paintings indicate that some women hadchanzu “Variety show—Beating Flower Drum,” anonymous, Song

  4. 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)

  5. 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 feet—tiangzu (heavenly feet), fangzu ( freed feet or letting feet out) • Condemnation of the shame it brought to the patriarchal nation • Claim that it hurts democracy

  6. formation of a denigrating, insulting, and erroneous image of women • Exaggeration of women’s ordeal as inferior and oppressed sex and of men’s position as superior and oppressive sex

  7. Expression of the movement’s misogynist attitude toward women with bound feet • Criminalization of Chanzu • Creation of two diametrically opposed female subject position, highlighted bychanzu inspectors.

  8. “Yaoniang wrapping her feet”

  9. Chairs used to wrap feet

  10. Bound foot women in late Qing

  11. Bound feet women in Modern Times

  12. Only ten-millimeters long

  13. The size of “Lotus Shoes” Bronze Sculpture

  14. Granny Wu inspected Maiden Liang Ying’s body

  15. The “Origin” Discourse • Foodbinding’s origin: footbinding in historical accounts and highbrow literature • The “origin issue” emerged as a topic of literati conversation in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)

  16. Myth and history are both myths. • Most commonly accepted notion: Yaoniang’s wrapped feet in the court of Li Yu of the Southern Tang

  17. 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

  18. Foodbinding in Fiction: Examples of Illustrated Fiction: (left) Dream of the Red Chamber (Honglou meng); (right) The Plum in the Golden Vase (Jinping Mei)

  19. 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

  20. Fiction depicting footbinding as an important element of culture: • Li YU (1610-80), Xianqing ouji (Casual Expressions of Idle Feeling), demonstrates the author’s 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

  21. 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

  22. 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

  23. Fiction shows that footbinding is characterized by: • Status distinctions • Regional diversities: north vs. south

  24. 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

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