Chinese Foot Binding Term paper
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INTRODUCTION
As I read the newspaper story, my eyes widen with every word, According to the National Institute of Mental Health there are over 5 million people in the United States suffering with eating disorders. 1% of all North American teenagers have eating disorders. 10% of these teenagers will die. People struggling with anorexia are among those whose health are at great risk ( www.planet-therapy.com) And then I see a picture of a young girl, nothing but bones and skin, looking wasted away. I ask myself, What won t people do for beauty ?
They say, True beauty comes from within. However true this statement may be, in almost every society throughout history, women have been required to undergo major and often painful physical alterations in the name of beauty and social status. Perhaps one of the most agonizing beatifications in all of history is the Chinese tradition of foot binding.
Foot binding is an ancient tradition that involves the reshaping of the woman s feet to achieve a smaller foot. Accompanied by unimaginable pain and crippling limitations, Chinese foot binding is a testament to how far humans will go to be beautiful. As with most other beautification processes, such as ear piercing or tattooing, Chinese foot binding has significant cultural and social implications. In addition, using modern technology, we can also see the physiological effects of foot binding.
The History
Foot binding began in the late T'ang Dynasty (618-906) and it gradually spread through the upper class during the Song Dynasty (960-1297). During the Ming period (1368-1644) and the Ching Dynasty (1644-1911) the custom of foot binding spread through the overwhelming majority of the Chinese population (Mo-ch n, 65). It began with the emperor Li Yu of the T ang Dynasty who, acting on his fetish for small feet, instructed his favorite concubine, Lovely Maiden, to bind her feet in silk cloth in order to make the tips of them look like a crescent moon. She was then instructed to dance for him in front of a six-foot lotus constructed entirely from gold and decorated with pearls and precious stones. This is where the term that described the woman s foot as a, golden lotus, came from (Chinn, 38). Pretty soon, word spread from the palace to the nobility, which was then passed down to the lower classes (who did their best to imitate) (Chinn, 38). The fetish of one emperor spread to become a fetish of his whole dynasty. In 1644, the Manchurians tried to ban foot binding, but never were able to enforce it (Mo-ch n, 65). The Manchurian women never practiced foot binding but the Chinese women of Han descent continued with the tradition (Mo-ch n, 65). With the turn of the 20th century, China began to be scolded by the modern world, which viewed the custom as barbaric. Feminist groups also began to pop up all over China, speaking out against foot binding (Mo-ch n, 65). The Empress Dowager Tz u-his in 1902 issued a decree banning the practice though the practice continued well into the 1920 s (Mo-ch n). Still, foot binding persisted within traditional families residing in rural areas (Mo-ch n). The more China became developed, the more pressure the outside world exerted on them to ban the old fashioned custom (Mo-ch n). The Chinese Xinhua News Agency announced, in 1998, that the last factory to manufacture shoes for bound-feet women in Harbin, China, had ended production (Chinn, 38). Finally, after a millennia, China has changed its customs and bound feet are rarely seen anywhere except on old Chinese women born in the early 20th century.
The Process
The goal of a bound foot is to reduce both its length and width. How can this possibly be achieved? The procedure involved taking a piece of cloth, preferably about ten feet long and two inches wide, and wrapping the foot. One end was placed on the inside of the arch, and from there it was carried over the small toes so as to force the toes in and towards the sole. The large toes were left unbound. The bandage was then wrapped around the heel so forcefully that the heel and toes were drawn close together. The process was the repeated from the beginning until the entire piece of cloth had been applied. The bones in the foot would eventually shatter after walking on it and they would heal incorrectly due to the bandage. It would take about two years for the foot to reach its model of three inches. Often, a girl would unwrap her feet after a few days because of the enormous amount of pain and pressure against her foot. This would cause the shrinking process to take longer and the mother would just have to redo it again. After a few months, the flesh of the foot would become rotten and portions of it would slough off from the sole; sometimes one or more toes dropped off. Perfuming of the feet and shoes was necessary to veil the gagging odor of rotten flesh. It wasn t uncommon for young girls to be beaten by their mothers for crying and wincing at the pain the bandages caused. They were actually walking on the outside of the toes, which had been bent under. This would cause the feet to become bloody and puss filled and the circulation to the foot was virtually stopped. The feet would then have to be unwrapped and cleaned only to be bound again one hour later. Once the feet were fleshy and rotten, incredibly small shoes called lotus shoes could shape them. These shoes were hard and the foot had to shoved into them with force for it to fit. As time passed, the girl would be given smaller shoes to shove her feet into until they finally reached its model size. (Jackson, 22-24)
One can hardly imagine the pain and paralyzing anguish associated with such a process; and to think that for nearly an entire millennia, almost every girl in China had this tortuous procedure done makes one grasp the true implication society can put on beauty. The following is the shocking testimony of a girl who had her feet bound at age seven. It describes the social pressure and physical pain that comes with bound feet. I was born in a certain district in western Hunan Province, at the end of the Manchu dynasty. In, accordance with custom, at the age of seven I began binding. I had witnessed the pain of my cousins, and in the year it was to begin was very much frightened. That autumn, distress befell me. One day prior my mother told me: 'You are now seven, just at the right age for binding. If we wait your foot will harden, increasing the pain. You should have started in the spring, but because you were weak we waited till now. Girls in other families have already completed the process. We start tomorrow. I will do this for you lightly and so that it won't hurt; what daughter doesn't go through this difficulty?' She then gave me fruit to eat, showed me a new pair of phoenix-tip shoes, and beguiled me with these words: 'Only with bound feet can you wear such beautiful shoes. Otherwise you'll become a large-footed barbarian and everyone will laugh at and feel ashamed of you." I felt moved by, a desire to be beautiful and became steadfast in determination, staying awake all night. I got up early the next morning everything had already been prepared Mother had me sit on a stool by the bed. She threaded a needle and placed it in my hair, cut off a piece of alum and put it alongside the binding cloth and the flowered shoes. She then turned and closed the bedroom door. She first soaked my feet in a pan of hot water, then wiped them, and cut the toenails with a small scissors. She then took my right foot in her hands and repeatedly massaged it in the direction of the plantar. She also sprinkled alum between my toes. She gave me a pen point to hold in my hands because of the belief that my feet might then become as pointed as it was. Later she took a cloth three feet long and two inches, wide, grasped my right foot, and pressed down the four smaller toes in the direction of the plantar. She joined them together, bound them once, and passed the binding from the heel to the foot surface and then to the plantar. She did this five times and then sewed the binding together with thread. To prevent it from getting loosened, she tied a slender cotton thread from the tip of the foot to its center. She did the same thing with the left foot and forced my feet into flowered shoes which were slightly smaller than the feet were. The tips of the shoes were adorned with threads in the shape of grain. There was a ribbon affixed to the mouth of the shoe and fastened on the heel. She ordered me to get down from the bed and walk, saying that if I didn't the crooked-shaped foot would be seriously injured. When I first touched the ground, I felt complete loss of movement; after a few trials, only the toes hurt greatly. Both feet became feverish at night and hurt from the swelling. Except for walking, I sat by the k'ang (bath). Mother rebound my feet weekly, each time more tightly than the last. I became more and more afraid. I tried to avoid the binding by hiding in a neighbor's house. If I loosened the bandage, mother would scold me for not wanting to look nice. After half a year, the tightly bound toes began to uniformly face the plantar. The foot became more pointed daily; after a year, the toes began to putrefy. Corns began to appear and thicken, and for a long time no improvement was visible. Mother would remove the bindings and lance the corns with a needle to get rid of the hard core. I feared this, but mother grasped my legs so that I couldn't move. Father betrothed me at the age of nine to a neighbor named Chao and I went to their house to serve as a daughter-in-law in the home of my future husband. My mother-in-law bound my feet much more tightly than mother ever had, saying that I still hadn't achieved the standard. She beat me severely if I cried; if I unloosened the binding, I was beaten until my body was covered with bruises. Also, because my feet were somewhat fleshy, my mother-in-law insisted that the foot must become inflamed to get the proper results. Day and night, my feet were washed in a medicinal water; within a few washings I felt special pain. Looking down, I saw that every toe but the big one was inflamed and deteriorated. Mother-in-law said that this was all to the good. I had to be beaten with fists before I could bear to remove the bindings, which were congealed with pus and blood. To get them loose, such force had to be used that the skin often peeled off, causing further bleeding. The stench was hard to bear, while I felt the pain in my very insides. My body trembled with agitation. Mother-in-law was not only unmoved but she placed tiles inside the binding in order to hasten the inflammation process. She was deaf to my childish cries. Every other day, the binding was made tighter and sewn up, and each time slightly smaller shoes had to be worn. The sides of the shoes were hard, and I could only get into them by using force. I was compelled to walk on them in the courtyard, they were called distance-walking shoes. I strove to cling to life, suffering indescribable pain. Being in an average family, I had to go to the well and a pound the mortar unaided. Faulty blood circulation caused my feet to become insensible in winter. At night, I tried to warm them by the k'ang, but this caused extreme pain. The alternation between frost and thawing caused me to lose one toe on my right foot. Deterioration of the flesh was such that within a year my feet had become as pointed as new bamboo shoots, pointing upwards like a red chestnut. The foot surface was slightly convex,...
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