The Lotus Lovers

Liang Ch’i-ch’ao was another noted political reformer who wrote persuasively in favor of the abolition of footbinding. He approached the problem from a broader perspective and thought in terms of elevating the social status of women. His essays evoked a general response and may have influenced those who felt antipathy to ideas they believed were imported from abroad. Here is an example of Liang’s argumentation taken from the Chinese press:

The eyes, ears, nose, hands, and feet come from Heaven and our parents. If one is incomplete or mutilated, we call this being lamed and say that Heaven has harmed the people. The ancient kings, in determining punishments, cut off noses, ears, and legs in order to punish evildoers and awe others into submission. Benevolent persons sometimes criticized these sovereigns for having damaged Heaven by injuring mankind in this way.

Men and women share equally. Heaven gives them life and parents give them love, treating them equally. . . . But the difference between strong and weak is most clearly marked in the difference between man and woman. Over the vast universe and throughout the ages, political edification from the sagely and virtuous was diffused like the vast seas, but not a word was said or a deed committed for the sake of woman. Women were treated in one of two ways: they either fulfilled a series of duties or served as playthings. They were reared like horses or dogs to satisfy the first need and adorned like flowers or birds to satisfy the second. These two methods of oppression gave rise to three types of punishment. In Africa and India they pressed a stone against a woman’s head to make it level, a punishment like our tattooing; in Europe they wanted the woman to have a slender waist, and to accomplish this they punished her by pressing wood against her waist; in China the woman had to have her feet bound, a punishment like cutting off the lower legs. These three punishments produced imperfect women throughout the world. I don’t know when bound feet started, but the originator must have been a corrupt prince, an immoral ruler, a robber of the people, or a despicable husband.

Alas! Good things in the world are done only with the greatest caution and hesitation, but evil things are transmitted very easily from one to another. These cruel, despicable, and frightening things spread their poisons everywhere and for countless ages! Parents force their daughters [into footbinding], while others make this the basis for selecting their sons’ brides. And a man esteems his wife for this reason. The child is punished this way when it has still not lost its first set of teeth. Its bones are broken and its flesh deteriorates, with bloody pus scattered about and injury widespread. Parents ignore its sighs, do not pity its weeping, are cold to its entreaties, and deaf to its screams. The child cannot get up for several months, even with the aid of a cane; a year later, she can only get about by being carried in a sedan chair.

Poems were used for propaganda purposes with perhaps even greater effect than the essays, for they were easy to understand and appealed to the emotions rather than the intellect. Poems in praise of the golden lotus had been legion in the days of its unquestioned popularity, but as the abolitionists gained momentum the tiny foot came under increasing poetic attack. Liang Ch’i-ch’ao’s contemporary Lin Ch’in-nan wrote three poetic denunciations of footbinding under the title of “Tiny-Foot Lady.” The poems, which resorted to practical arguments rather than theoretical or abstract ones, are translated below:

TINY-FOOT LADY

Tiny-foot lady, whose daughter are you?
Three-inch bowed shoes beneath her skirt.
She trembles in the blowing wind,
For she’s durable above but unsteady below.
How hard for her to move one step,
As if she’s gone ten thousand miles!
She leans on an amah to the left,
And a maid servant to the right;
If perchance you step on her foot,
She feels an excruciating pain.
When did you start the binding?
Why do you suffer such endless pain?
I do not know why, is her reply.
At five, when I could fill out my clothes,
Mother made shoes and ordered me to start.
My toes were pointed, my instep bent down,
And though I cried out to Heaven and Earth,
Mother ignored me as if she were deaf.
My nights were spent in pain,
My early mornings in tears;
I spoke to Mother by my bed;
How you worry when I’m ill,
How frightened if I fall!
Now the agony from my feet has penetrated the marrow of my bones,
And I am plunged into despair, but you,
You don’t care a bit about me.
Mother turned to comfort the delicate child:
I felt just like you as a girl,
But I want your foot to be so small
That it earns you a social reputation,
And that is why I am willing
To devote such time to the binding.
How inconceivable, that in reducing the foot,
Her flesh and bones are so distressed
That she loses her appetite for food.
So much of her fragrant youth
Spent weeping by the fallen flowers;
She hears the chirping of the birds,
But her bowed foot is like a tiny grave.

The second poem:

TINY-FOOT LADY

The bright sun penetrates an old room,
Slipping in through broken rafters;
There is a wife seated within,
Chaste like a model of antiquity.
Busy daily cooking, carrying firewood;
But with each step, grievously she sighs.
If you ask why, she replies:
My feet are no good at all,
And whenever I look at them,
My silent tears begin to flow.
So tiny, an error of my childhood.
Seven years ago, living by the river,
A great flood came with a roaring sound;
My good man, away on business,
That night failed to return home;
My lovely children, absorbed in dreams.
In my left arm a boy, a girl in my right;
Where could we go in the thick of the night?
My tiny feet were easily pushed about by the water,
And I knew spring flood would take mother, son, and daughter.
There is nothing so pitiful as tiny feet;
What happened then still causes my heart to break.
The next move was to the outskirts of the city.
A bird sat on the rafters, portent of fire,
How the sudden flames nearby terrified me!
To avert disaster, barefoot I walked along the road,
My heels and toes were broken open and bruised,
My feet bled the color of a crimson camellia.
Please persuade all women to unbind their feet,
And if parental hearts remain as hard as steel,
Make them listen to my heart-rending appeal.

The third poem: