The foot-liberating movement of the Republic of China

 

The foot-liberating movement of the Republic of China

 

 

Dorji, Yadan, Dawa, Xiangqima and Agudengba, Azhuo and Chuxingxing officially bid farewell.

Agu Demba, A Zhuo, Chu Sanxing and their newly acquainted cavalry guide Lacuo embarked on the road to Tibet, along the banks of the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar, to the Himalayas.

Along the way, the cavalry guide Lacuo said to Agudengba:

Dear Mr. Agudengba, at the dinner, I heard you and Mr. Dorje chatting about the story of Chinese women’s feet being bound. I often travel to and from the Tea Horse Road, and occasionally I see a few old women with bound feet. I am very curious. I am afraid that this custom is only found in China. What exactly is going on?

Agudenba smiled and said:

The most direct impact of foot binding on women is the deformity of their little toes. In China, women's feet are wrapped as small as hooves, and working women can only kneel on the ground to work because they cannot stand firmly on their feet.

Commonly known as foot binding, this method is to bend the girls' toes to the maximum extent when they are very young. It is best to let the toes touch the heels. This is very painful, but their mothers do not know how to do it. Because they screamed in pain and gave up this behavior, they would always wrap their feet with cloth, and often reinforce the cloth to achieve the minimum purpose. Among all the feet that were bound, the three-inch golden lotus was the most beauty.

This custom has been around since the Sui Dynasty, but it was not until the Song Dynasty that it really became popular. Because of the herd mentality, more and more people bound their feet in a disgraceful way, but they were still beautiful because of it.

The principle of foot binding is to bind a girl's feet during the developmental stage to inhibit the growth of the feet. This binding is not ordinary binding, but bends the feet so hard that the toes may be broken. It usually starts at the age of three. . But does a three-year-old child know what beauty is? He can only let his mother do such things on his own.

Lacuo asked again:

Why do women like foot binding?

Agudenba smiled:

In fact, women's bound feet have a lot to do with men, because women's status in China is very low, and their lives are completely dependent on men, so everything is done to please men. At that time, men just liked For small feet, it is best to be able to play with them in your hands. Even many famous poets like women's small feet. Famous poets such as Su Shi and Xin Qiji also wrote poems praising women with small feet, so women have their feet bound. To please men.

During the Ming Dynasty in China, Datong and Xuanfu were both regarded as the birthplaces of beauties because women from Datong and Xuanfu were famous for their small feet.

In the late Qing Dynasty, the beauty of Taohuajiang River, a small town in Yiyang, was so famous that it was even included in the lyrics. This was also because the women there were famous for their small feet.

In the old days, there was a saying in China that "beauties from all over the world come from Yangzhou". The beauty of Yangzhou beauties is not in appearance or figure, but in the thinness of a pair of "yellow fish feet" that is popular among contemporary people.

Some people say, "Women in the world, both ancient and modern, are all obsessed with beauty and are slaves to fashion. As long as they can be praised as "beautiful," they will do whatever it takes to get their skin broken and their bones broken."

Although this statement may seem absolute, the phenomenon described is by no means isolated. It is this kind of love for beauty that makes women blindly obey, deliberately groom, and try their best to bind their feet. You bind me, and you are smaller. Besides, appearance, body, and skin color are all derived from talent, and it is up to you the day after tomorrow. There won't be much improvement if you work hard. Only a pair of small feet are bound by human power. It is possible to obtain a pair of so-called "wonderful lotus" by your own efforts. Whether you succeed or fail, everything depends on you. "If you want to be prominent in front of others, you have to suffer behind your back." In order to make yourself better than others, in order to win a "beautiful" reputation for yourself, a woman who loves beauty and blindly obeys it, No one was willing to lag behind, and they fought for beauty and beauty. As a result, the foot-binding trend became more and more fierce, and it could not be stopped once it started.

Agudemba continued:

Why did "ancient foot binding" last for 900 years? One of the reasons was so abominable that the woman had to give in.

That is the ancient Chinese scumbags who raised bounding feet to a question of whether they are patriotic or not. Especially during the Qing Dynasty, people with bound feet reached their peak.

In fact, the nobles of the Qing Dynasty were all Manchus, and they did not bind their feet. Why did so many people still bind their feet at that time? This is because since the Manchus entered the country, they have implemented a "hair-shaving order", which means that men must have a long braid on the back of their heads and a bald head in front. The men have succumbed to this method. However, the imperial court did not ban the bad habit of foot-binding among women. Those who read the book regarded women's continued foot-binding behavior as their resistance to the Manchu regime, and it was elevated to a patriotic behavior. Women also Have to accept it.

Lacuo said again:

I heard that the Manchus believe in Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetans do not have the custom of binding women’s feet. I am afraid it has something to do with the fact that the Manchus do not bind their feet.

Agudenba explained:

The custom of foot-binding was mostly popular among the Han people, so the Manchus in the Qing Dynasty did not accept the foot-binding custom of the Han people.

In the third year of Chongde reign, Emperor Taizong of the Qing Dynasty issued an order prohibiting women from "tying their hair and binding their feet." In the 17th year of Shunzhi, it was stipulated that those who resisted the decree and had their feet bound would have their husbands or fathers to have an eighty-year-old stick and travel three thousand miles away. In the third year of Kangxi's reign, he applied for the previous order again, but it was not implemented seriously. Although many emperors explicitly prohibited foot binding, the results were ineffective.

Although the Banner people have never bound their feet, the Han people believe that foot binding is a Han folk custom and deliberately retain it. It is said that men are subordinated to women but not women, and women's feet are bound more often than before.

At the same time, Tibetans have not accepted the foot-binding culture of the Han people. It can even be said that women in the entire Western Region do not have this ugly foot-binding custom.

Foot-binding custom in Taiwan During the Japanese colonial period, foot-binding was one of the three major traditional bad habits along with opium and tobacco. The Governor-General of Taiwan has strictly banned the practice of foot-binding and recorded the foot-binding situation of women on the island in the household survey. Taiwan census data from the Taisho period shows that among Han women, 60% of Hokki women had their feet bound, while less than 1% of Hakka women had their feet bound. At that time, many "Tianzu Associations" were established in Taiwan to encourage women to abandon their old habits, which became a fashion for a while. In the 1906 Meishan earthquake, the death rate of women was much higher than that of men. In order to escape from the earthquake, the elders began to agree that little girls in the family should not have their feet bound, and the policy of abolishing women's foot binding was successfully implemented.

Lacuo smiled:

I have met many Han people, and some Han people are very prejudiced against Tibetans, thinking that Tibetans are poor, backward, and ignorant. Now I finally understand that just from the matter of foot binding, we can see the ignorant customs of the Han people, which are unparalleled in the world.

Agudemba corrected:

You can't look at the problem this way. There are many knowledgeable people among the Han people who are opposed to foot binding.

China has long had insightful people who praised footbinding differently from the secular world.

Che Ruoshui of the Song Dynasty questioned this in his "Athology of Athlete's Foot": "Madam's foot binding, I don't know when it started? The child is not four or five years old, innocent, and made to suffer infinite suffering: I don't know why the foot binding was done." use?"

Yu Yingshi pointed out in his article "Democracy, Human Rights and Confucian Culture", "As DeBary said: 'Foot binding is often used as a symbol of the evil habit of showing the cruelty, distortion and male supremacy of Confucianism.' But in fact, as he Clearly state that this extreme form of violation of women’s human rights has nothing to do with Confucianism or Buddhism.”

All descendants of Cheng Yi, the founder of Neo-Confucianism, faithfully followed the family tradition of not binding feet until the Yuan Dynasty.

Later, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and Empress Dowager Cixi explicitly prohibited "foot binding".

After the Qing Dynasty was overthrown, on March 11, 1912, Sun Yat-sen ordered the Ministry of Internal Affairs to issue orders to all provinces to ban foot binding. The order says: If the general wants to strengthen the national power, he must first develop the physical strength of the people. As for foot binding, which mutilates limbs and blocks blood vessels, even if the harm is done to one person, the disease will be carried out on his descendants. How can it be falsely accused based on physiological evidence? As for foot binding, his movements are exhausted, he lives in a simple way, he has no education, and he is indifferent to worldly affairs. Ask, how can you make a living independently and serve the world together? The above two are particularly great. If they do harm, it will be hard to count. In the past, benevolent people and people with lofty ideals had the establishment of Tianzuhui. Those who were enlightened had seen relief, while those who were stubborn were still clinging to their prejudices. At this time when the old is being eradicated and the new is established, it is especially important to get rid of these bad customs in advance to build up the foundation of the country. For this reason, the ministry was ordered to quickly issue orders to all provinces and ban them as a whole. Those who violated the ban for a reason would be given appropriate penalties to their family members.

After entering the Republic of China, "encouraging the ban on foot-binding and persuading it to be relaxed" has always been an important task of successive governments. During the May 4th Movement, foot binding became the target of various revolutionary movements and radicals. Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao and others wrote articles denouncing the destruction and oppression of women by foot binding. The trend of "letting go" gradually emerged.

Agudengba sighed:

At that time, China's foot-binding custom began to disappear from coastal cities and gradually affected inland areas. But the footloose movement has also been ridiculed. The last recordable case of footbinding occurred in 1957. Liuyi Village, Tonghai County, 140 kilometers south of Kunming City, Yunnan Province, is known as "the last small-footed tribe in China". As of 2004, it was denied that there were still 22 old ladies with bound feet here. China's last factory manufacturing small-foot shoes, located in Harbin, closed in November 1999.

Agudengba said to A Zhuo, Chu Sanxing and the newly acquainted Lacuo:

The bad habit of foot binding among Chinese women was finally abolished in the Republic of China, but it took more than 900 years. It can be seen that Chinese women are very miserable. Not only do they have to accept the three obediences and four virtues and various female precepts and training, but they also suffer the persecution of foot binding. , but women will not resist on their own, because their thoughts have deeply imprisoned them, which is also a kind of sadness for them.

Lacuo sang a Tibetan folk song "The Road Is Under Our Feet":

 

We are on the way to Tibet,

Life is a journey,

Look how big this world is,

You can appreciate the beauty of the world.

 

Staying behind closed doors is like wrapping your little feet,

Foot binding imprisons the pursuit of dreams and ideals;

Life is actually so short,

Go out for a walk to broaden your horizons.

 

The roofs of the Himalayas rise into the clouds,

The blue waves of the Brahmaputra River are like brocade,

The foggy ice pagoda in Tashi ancient temple is towering.

Put your hands together to bless the road at our feet.