A story about foot binding

Story about foot-binding:

Foot-binding was highly respected by scholars in the Song Dynasty, and even outstanding writers such as Su Shi and Xin Qiji had chapters on singing and appreciating foot-binding. In Su Shi's Bodhisattva Man, there is a sentence that "it is difficult to say that it is exquisite, but you must look at it from the palm of your hand", and in Xin Qiji's Bodhisattva Man, there is a sentence that "the shoes are small like a yellow bow, and the waist is afraid that the wind will blow down", which is often quoted by people.

Mr. Lin Yutang once described women's gait after foot-binding: China women's foot-binding completely changed women's elegance and gait. "Its function is equivalent to modern girls wearing high-heeled shoes, and it produces a very restrained and graceful gait, which makes the whole body fragile and shaky, so as to produce a delicate feeling."

It was this "poor feeling" that inflated the sense of superiority of feudal literati. Thus, it breeds its "highest degree of secrecy in sexual ideals."

Extended information:

Before the founding of New China, women in China, especially women in Jilin, had an extremely bumpy road of "advocating women's liberation, calling on women to go to society and strive for independence in personality and dignity". Not to mention that the feudal shackles of "three obedience and four virtues" controlled women's thoughts, and the bad habit of female foot-binding made Jilin women in the old society suffer a lot.

the provincial archives collects a file of Yuan Shikai, the temporary president in the first year of the Republic of China, who "broke old habits and banned women's foot binding all over the country". Yuan Shikai was not the first person in the history of China to ban foot binding, but when the Republic of China was first established, everything was in ruins, which was still very meaningful.

Foot-binding is to tightly wrap a woman's feet with long strips of cloth since childhood, making them small and deformed, which is beautiful. In the eyes of reformers and progressives in the late Qing Dynasty, foot binding, along with opium and shaving, is one of the symbols of social backwardness in China. In fact, foot binding is a "foreign culture" for Jilin women.

Before the Ming and Qing Dynasties, most Jilin people still lived a nomadic life. Women had to farm and ride horses like men, so "little feet" were inconvenient for women. Emperor Taizong of the Qing Dynasty, Huang Taiji, ordered that Manchu women be forbidden to follow the example of women in the Ming Dynasty. Shunzhi stipulates that if there is resistance to foot binding, his husband or father will stick 8 sticks and flow for three thousand miles.

Qianlong has repeatedly decreed that women with banners are not allowed to bind their feet. In the late Qing Dynasty, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom also opposed foot binding. With the increase of immigration to Northeast China, customs such as foot-binding have also been brought in. On March 13, 1912, Sun Yat-sen, the temporary president of the Republic of China, electrified the whole country to persuade foot binding to be banned. Since then, Yuan Shikai, his successor, has also made efforts to prohibit female foot binding. At this time, Jilin began to follow the pace of the whole country and banned bad habits such as men's hair storage and women's foot binding.

People's Daily Online-On Jilin Women's Rights Liberation in the Republic of China from Foot-binding and Short Hair