The natural-foot society wanted to accomplish two things: eradicate the footbinding habit, and lead fellow Taiwanese in making the transition towards a more enlightened culture. It functioned like similar mainland organizations, with members vowing not to let their sons take bound-foot brides. Certain members were appointed to propagandize among the masses and try to persuade them to renounce binding. If membership in any one area totaled one hundred or more, branch societies were to be established. The society was granted a formal permit to operate in February, 1900; from this time on, local intellectuals joined, and its active membership increased. A meeting of about 250 members was held on March twentieth, attended by the Taiwan Governor-General and other high dignitaries. Huang Yu-chieh, in his inaugural address, criticized footbinding as an unhealthy practice which prevented a woman from fulfilling her duties. He informed his audience that it was often ridiculed and laughed at by foreigners.
Now Taiwan has become a part of the Japanese empire, and the government is carrying out reforms. The Taiwanese are also a people of reform, but it will really be shameful if they are not made aware of the evil customs of the past. The natural-foot society was formed with this objective in mind. . . . We must continue striving forward, hoping that women can keep their Heavenly endowments. [Natural-footed] women can pound the mortars, draw water from the wells, and sew garments diligently in the service of their in-laws. Going one step further, they can enter schools to study the Japanese language, embroidery or calligraphy, and perhaps specialize in arithmetic, accounting, science, or other fields. If successful, they will create a worthy livelihood and greatly help society by assisting men who are too busy to accomplish certain deeds.
Huang’s principal argument was traditional rather than liberal, as he did not advocate social equality for women but wanted them to be able to perform menial household tasks with increased efficiency. His criticism of footbinding because it prevented women from working harder was widely supported. Many Taiwanese had originally migrated to the island from Fukien Province, and it was in Fukien that the following anti-footbinding ditty was popularly known:
Even though it was an officially encouraged organization, the natural-foot society faced many difficulties. Many privately admitted that footbinding was a bad thing, but few, including intellectuals, were willing to pioneer by openly directing their wives to remove the bindings. The general tendency to make fun of women with natural feet brought about a type of inertia against radical change and a social compulsion to keep things as they were. Transfer of the Taipei county chief in November, 1901, weakened the society, since he was one of its staunchest supporters. The Japanese bureaucracy went through many administrative changes at this time, causing lessened official concern with the movement. There was little activity in 1902, but 1903 saw a revival of interest. The Taiwan county chief held a meeting that August, informing his subordinates that footbinding should be eliminated, and instructed them as follows: natural-foot societies were to be established throughout Taiwan, with the main office at Taipei; members were not to bind their daughters’ feet if more than six years old; boys over ten could not contract to be engaged to marry bound-foot girls; boys in the society could marry outsiders only if they had natural feet; society members would be fined from five to one hundred yen if they let their children revert to this practice, and members were to be fined like amounts if they sold their natural-footed daughters. (This may have referred to the Taiwanese custom of selling daughters, which, though illegal, is still practiced.) While branch societies were set up as ordered, the effect was negligible.
The unbound foot was still a popular butt of ridicule. To counteract this, society leaders decided that its members should be given congratulatory medals. These were officially sanctioned in September, 1903, and were in the form of a lotus, inscribed with the words, “Glorious Medal of Taiwan.” Those who had let their feet out had a blue ribbon attached to the medal; a red ribbon meant that the wearer had natural feet. Each medal holder was presented with a silken sash by the Governor-General, on which he personally wrote the Confucian maxim that filial piety began with our not daring to injure our persons.
In the early years of the twentieth century, a major obstacle to success of the abolition movement on Taiwan was the inability of the Japanese to pacify every segment of the population. As late as 1909, the chief of the Civil Affairs Bureau indicated in correspondence with the branch chief of Keelung that local bandits were present everywhere, keeping the masses in a state of unrest. He advised that it was premature to end such evils as opium smoking, pigtails, and footbinding, and said that the Japanese “would have to be very careful not to injure public sentiment by their remarks about the local customs.” In April, 1911, regarding whether Taiwanese should be granted Japanese nationality, the Governor-General officially said that such recipients would be ridiculed if they went to Europe and America wearing pigtails and dressed like old-style Chinese. This was considered detrimental to the national face of Japan, and as such was officially deplored.
In 1914, the Taichung Office Chief invited prominent people to discuss the problem of revising outmoded Chinese mores. One outcome of the discussions was organization of a Society for Improvement of Our Island’s Customs. That spring, a Society to Let Out Footbindings was organized by the influential Lin family of Wufeng, located near Taichung. More than six hundred women let out their bindings, and others began to imitate their example. The Taiwan Governor-General realized that the time was opportune. In 1915, on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of Japanese rule in Taiwan, he decided to end footbinding once and for all. On the fifteenth of April, an official order of prohibition was issued. The decree was effective, and by August more than 763,000 women had obeyed. Recalcitrants were forcibly dealt with, more and more Taiwanese complied, and the custom virtually disappeared, owing to strict government prohibition and the development of public feeling against it. The bound-foot elderly lady in Taiwan has today become an increasingly uncommon sight.
PART TWO
CURIOUS
Chapter Four
Lotus Lovers
The elimination of footbinding in the first half of the twentieth century resulted directly from the drive to emancipate Chinese women from an age-old inheritance of social inequality. Chinese reformers and Western missionaries made unremitting efforts to destroy the custom. They enjoyed official as well as private encouragement and presented their cause with conviction. The fact that the “golden lotus” had once been an inextricable part of Chinese culture was disregarded; the outcries of the opposition drowned out the voices of footbinding’s apologists.