Chinese Footbinding :: essays research papers fc

The ancient Chinese custom of footbinding ca employ severe life-long suffering for the Chinese women involved. When researching the subject of footbinding, unmatched of the difficult things is finding factual knowledge write before the 20th century. Most of the historical data has been gathered from writings, drawings and photographs from the nineteenth and 20th centuries. Addition bothy, the research indicates that the historical documentation was mainly from missionary accounts and belles-lettres from various anti-footbinding societies. These groups had a bias because of their opposing viewpoints. The first documented indication to footbinding was from the Southern Tang Dynasty in Nanjing (Vento 1). Although the history of footbinding is very vague it lasted for at least sensation thousand years.Early text referred to the Han Dynasty as people who favourite(a) that the women get hold of small feet (Vento, 1). Vento also acknowledged the first documented pen to actual bindi ng of the feet was from the Tang Dynasty in Nanjing (1). Before the Sung Dynasty concealment was only slightly constricting, allowing for free movement, they were also thought to have used footbinding to suppress women. The Yuan Dynasty introduced binding into the central and southern parts of China. It may have been emphasized to draw a clear cultural attribute between the Chinese and their large footed conquerors, the Mongols. Footbinding was most popular during the Ming Dynasty, if parents cared for their sons they would not go easy on their studies and if they cared for their daughters they would not go easy on their footbinding (Levy, 47-49). One recent study estimated that there are appease one million women in China with bound feet. The last Chinese women, still living with bound feet in Hawaii, was in 1994 (Kam, D-6).There are many legends of how footbinding began, one such legend is Lady Yao, a dancer and concubine for Prince Li Yu, danced with such grace that the princ e required her to bind her feet to resemble new moons all the time. Another, is that it began out of the sympathy for Empress Taki who had club feet (Aero, 112-113). Although it has not been proven how footbinding started, one of the biggest reasons the place continued for over 1000 years was its sexual appeal (Kam, D-1).Humans have shown they will do just about anything- good, evil, or in-between for sex. Footbinding is a very bold issue that many Chinese do not like to talk about.