Chinese Woman and Foot Binding - Research Paper Example

Chinese Woman and Foot Binding Introduction O Tempora! O Mores! There are many different traditions and cultures around the world. One cannot even imagine that to go with tunneled ears or wear a huge number of bracelets on one’s neck to make it longer is possible…Nevertheless, when at Rome, do as the Romans do. Therefore, no matter how many indignant opinions can be heard from the lips of Europeans or Americans, the East is tricky! This is true, because when we hear about foot binding practiced by the Chinese women, we start looking for the answer and the essence of this phenomenon. China has a deeply rooted culture and the uniqueness of its traditions cannot be denied. It is evident that Chinese women want to sacrifice their feelings in order to reach the ideals of beauty of their nation and become petite women with doll-like feet. On the one hand, it is very painful and it is hard to imagine how a woman can suffer and for what?! To answer this question it is desirable to penetrate into the historical depths of China. Are there any connections between foot-binding and cultural heritage of the country?! No one really knows… Foot binding is life binding This tradition was widely used in China starting from 10th century and till 20th century.  Modern people cannot even understand what was interesting and beautiful in this weird affair… A sexual fetish of Chinese men was reached by means of such measures taken and suffering experienced by the Chinese girls and women. Feet of young girls were wrapped in firm bandages so that they cannot grow. A desirable growing can be 4-6 inches (10-15 cm). During the first year of bandage wearing a girl feels breaking of her four small toes and only one toe remains stable without any breaks. There is a famous Chinese saying: “If you love your daughter, bind her feet; if you love your son, let him study”. This practice was very much complicated. One director of the film, a Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Yue-Qing Yang interviewed girls and women of that period and revealed the complexities and challenges of this practice. The roots of this tradition can be found in the following background: an emperor, who lived a thousand years ago, expressed his preferences for women with small feet. This gossip became widespread among women from poor classes. The Communists forbade this malpractice in 1949, but prior to this year 4 million of women are supposed to have bound their feet (McManus 12). There is another opinion, expressed by Columbia University Professor Dorothy Ko, where she says that foot binding was not the tragedy. A mother made a choice for their daughters and responsibility should be relied on her only. In the show Foot Binding: Search for the Three Inch Golden Lotus  it was claimed that for a woman living in the Confucian culture the highest moral value was placed on domesticity, motherhood, and handwork (Earle 118). Actually, a culture of exploitation is released in a patriarchal culture and a tradition of feet binding. In the book written by Jicai (1994) it was mentioned that this procedure was very painful: “Fragrant Lotus’s mind was filled with waves of pain and pinching, folding and contortion” (Jicai 16). In spite of this torturing pain a girl had to walk otherwise her bones would not be broken in a proper manner. A price for a future life of a woman with binding feet is always high, but she could be sire that her future life will be successful and prosperous. “Foot binding is a compelling example of how oppression is perfectly compatible with individual choice (albeit made by mothers, but with their daughters' best interests at heart)” (Foot 56). Nevertheless, husbands were proud of tiny feet of their wives and boasted an ideal size of their feet. It was an evident mark of beauty and to reach the “Golden Lotus” (3 inches feet) was a life-long goal for the Chinese women, mothers and daughters. A dainty walk was very sexually attractive for men. Foot binding was realized in different forms (King 26). These tortures were initiated when a girl was from three to five years old. The pain was supposed not to be so extreme in winter, but still the pain was unbearable. This bandage looks like a torturing means: it was cotton bandage 3 m long and 5 cm wide. A girl’s feet were tightly suppressed and the toes were finally broken. Of course, there was a great risk of infections and that is why it was necessary to cut back nails on toes as far as possible to avoid any type of infections. From the book it is evident that girls started going mad: “Autumn Scene did not utter a sound, but she was crying harder than her daughter. Her body shook all over, and her tears left the front of her jacket as wet as if soaked by half a basin of water. Golden Treasure did not shed a single tear. Her small, flowerlike face wore a diabolical smile, and now and again she grabbed the bandages from Apricot and Pearl and tightened them herself with greater force” (Jicai 165). It seems that these perverted ideals of beauty and malpractice of feet binding were transferred to the coming generation. There are overall descriptions about the screams of girls, but some of these girls have agreed upon their destiny and trust their mothers, who are torturing them from the very childhood. There was a need to take a great care about feet. Girls were putting many efforts to unbind their feet regularly, washing them, and carefully trimming the nails. Each time there was a need to bound feet even tighter. The girls were afraid that their feet will look natural again and then they will scare off their fairy future… Of course, infected toes led to inevitable infections and a rotten flesh (Metraux 210). These girls were even unable to rise up on their feet from a sitting position. It was an uneasy task for them. There is a strong erotic underpinning in feet binding. It can be said that a woman with perfect lotus feet was considered to be a perfect wife. There were special sex manuals, which outlined how it is possible to play with bounded feet of girls and women. Qing Dynasty found out 48 different sexual rituals to play with bound feet (Earle 119). Nevertheless, men did not want to see unbound feet, because it was supposed to be depressing for them. These women could walk by small steps and it was completely amusing and pleasant for men. Of course, women should hide an awful odor of wrapped feet and a horrible realistic vision of them. In the following critical answer it is evident that woman, who did not have bound feet was considered to be an outcast:  "You go homeand ask your mother before you start your smooth talk again! Bound  feet maybe good or bad, but a bound-foot woman gave birth to you. Would you even dare to say that your own mother had big feet?"(Jicai 173). Unfortunately, it was enough to bound one’s feet, to be dependent on patriarchal laws of the family and the country, to be almost immobile, to sit at home and please a husband…Chinese women were simple dolls and there is no wonder that very often one can buy a pumpkin-head sitting statue of a Chinese woman, who can do nothing but only shake her head. Conclusion It is difficult to imagine, but more than billion of feet of Chinese women were broken and the lives of these women were oppressed. Imagine, how many spoiled destinies, hearts and souls were sacrificed in the name of a bounded feet, an incredibly crazy sexual fetish of the emperors and Chinese elite…It is possible to illustrate horrible practices of cruel attitudes of different nations or tribes to their members, when African women from some faraway tribes are stretching their lower lip or insert some things in it, or when they eat as much as possible and sit to have an incredibly huge buttocks. Chinese feet binding, to my mind, stand closer to these traditions and customs. On the one hand, it is impossible to discard and criticize this tradition, because it lasted for 10 centuries! So, is it possible to claim that all these people living during those centuries were crazy or insane? I do not think so. They just followed patriarchal templates of the society development and they could not negatively react to the Emperor’s claims and protest against his wishes. Something reminds me in this situation the same position of the Russian people, when they followed insane rules of Stalin, for example. They were also bund and oppressed, but they preferred living with their bound minds. It is possible to draw other parallels between feet binding in China and any other oppressing or torturing tradition or custom in another country. Actually, the conclusion will be the same in any of the cases: oppressed society cannot avoid bound minds or feet, but independent people living in the democracy will not even have such a threat. Bibliography Earle, Lynda. "Lotus Hook." Hecate 20, no. 2 (1994): 116+. http://www.questia.com/read/1G1-16490443. Foot, Philippa. Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002. http://www.questia.com/read/110232154. Jicai, Feng. The Three-Inch Golden Lotus. Translated by David Wakefield. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994. http://www.questia.com/read/11234419. King, Barry. "Orientalizing Sexism: Hye Rim Lee's TOKI." Afterimage 33, no. 4 (2006): 25+. http://www.questia.com/read/1G1-143164777. McManus, Janie M. "A Novel Idea: Historical Fiction and Social Studies." Social Education 72, no. 4 (2008): SS8+. http://www.questia.com/read/1G1-179615556. Metraux, Daniel A. "Dean King, Unbound: A True Story of War, Love, and Survival." Southeast Review of Asian Studies 32 (2010): 207+. http://www.questia.com/read/1G1-293544450. Read More