There was a Shanghai newspaper article in 1931 about still another case of modern male footbinding. Ai Shao-ch’uan, a native of Shantung, was over fifty years old at the time the story appeared in print. His parents had bound his feet in bowed form from childhood and had dressed him like a girl. He lived peacefully in his native village and was regarded as a woman by the villagers. In 1919, he went to Tsinan to avoid local banditry. He had been living there for only ten days when he was apprehended and jailed by local police authorities. He informed reporters who interviewed him that he was fifty-one years old and that his elderly mother was still living with him. They earned a living through the rent of farmland which they owned. Mr. Ai’s father had served as an official in Honan. There he lost every one of his children in infancy and finally requested advice from a temple astrologer. He was told that the chain of misfortune could be broken only if he reared his next son as if he were a girl. That is why Ai’s feet were bound from infancy onwards. He had taken a wife at eighteen, only to have her die soon afterwards. At the time of the interview, he stated that wearing feminine apparel had become a natural thing with him. The Tsinan press dispatch in the Shanghai Times, entitled “An Old Boy With Long Hair and Bound Feet,” did not mention the final disposition of the case.
An unverified newspaper report was cited about a certain handsome young man who vainly searched his city for a tiny-footed bride. He also tried the villages, but was repelled by the plainness of peasant girls. He finally decided to dress as a woman, had his feet bound by an old lady, and finally took her for his wife. But the gap in ages was so great that everyone took her for his mother. A friend who had known him before marriage paid a visit, but when he got to the house he saw only a young bound-foot lady standing before him.
Don’t you recognize me? I’ve bound my feet; aren’t they pretty? Rub them; aren’t they soft? Smell them; they have no bad odor, but only a lovely fragrance.
When the friend was introduced to the wife, an old and ugly lady who looked to him like someone’s grandmother, he took fright and fled.
The fictional theme of a man’s being subjected to footbinding was used effectively by Li Ju-chen (c.1763-c.1830), a pioneer in the move to emancipate women. Li tried to achieve his objective by couching radical ideas in story form. He is justly remembered for the novel Ching-hua yuan, in which events of the seventh century served as historical background. In the novel, he described a series of incidents which had supposedly taken place during the reign of Empress Wu. Li wrote about a country in which the usual roles of the sexes were reversed. A woman ruled there like the Empress Wu and enjoyed the favors of male concubines. A merchant named Lin Chih-yang once visited the royal compound in order to sell a line of cosmetics to the feminine sovereign. She had him invited into the palace under the guise of wishing to discuss sales prices, but her real intent was to force him into concubinage. The author tried to show the cruelty of such practices as ear piercing and footbinding by describing the sensations of the merchant when he was forced to undergo both:
A white-bearded [male] palace “lady” took a needle and thread in his hands and knelt before the bed [on which Lin Chih-yang was seated], saying: “Honorable wife, I am ordered to pierce your ears.” Four other palace “ladies” held him fast while the bearded “lady” rubbed his right ear several times and then quickly pierced it with the needle. Lin screamed out in pain and threw himself backwards, but fortunately was supported by palace attendants who prevented [a serious fall]. The bearded one pierced his left ear in the same way; Lin again responded with a series of screams. After both ears had been pierced, ceruse was rubbed into the apertures and decorative gold earrings were inserted.
The ear piercing and footbinding which Li Ju-chen wrote about in sequence were associated practices at least as early as the Yuan dynasty. Another passage in the book described how Merchant Lin’s feet were bound:
A black-bearded palace attendant, with a white roll of cloth in his hands, knelt before Lin’s bed and said: “Honorable wife, I am ordered to bind your feet.” Two other palace “ladies” knelt down, grasped his golden lotuses, and removed his stockings. The black-bearded attendant sat on a footstool. He split the cloth in two, and placed Lin’s right foot on his knee. Rubbing white alum between the toes, he pressed them tightly together. He forced the surface of Lin’s foot into the shape of a bow, and bound it with the white cloth. Every time he wrapped the binding twice, another attendant would meticulously tie it together with needle and thread. Utmost effort was exerted in both sewing and binding. Lin was unable to move; four attendants held him tightly, while two others grasped his legs. When the binding was completed, his feet felt like burning coals, fired by a successive series of pain flashes.
Lin soon discovered that the pain of having one’s feet bound was unbearable. That night, when the palace attendants in charge of watching him fell asleep, he took off the bandages to let his feet resume their normal shape. The guards discovered this on the next morning and as a punishment whipped him five times on the buttocks with a long, thick bamboo rod, causing a stream of blood. The imposition of fifteen additional strokes was suspended only after he promised under pressure to let his feet be bound once more. This was done, and from that time on he was guarded day and night. The pain was so intense that he asked for death, preferring that to a life of endless agony, but his request was denied. Within a fortnight, the flesh on his toes had begun to decay. His legs gradually withered, while his bound feet bled daily and deteriorated into two stump-like protuberances. He lost the ability to walk independently and could hobble about only with the support of attendants.
In another part of Ching-hua yuan, Li Ju-chen eloquently summed up the case against footbinding:
I have heard that women here observe a practice of footbinding. When the feet are first bound, the women endure every conceivable pain, rubbing their feet and crying piteously. Things reach such a state that the skin and flesh putrefy and the blood flows. They can’t sleep at night or get their food to stay down, and as a consequence every sort of illness follows. I thought that these women must have been unfilial and that their mothers, who could not bear to see them receive a death penalty, punished them in this way instead. But little did I realize that this practice arose from a concept of beauty. Only such bound feet are considered beautiful! If we cut down someone’s nose to make it smaller, or lopped off protruding cheeks to make them level, wouldn’t such persons be considered deformed? Why is it then that the two feet are so deformed that walking on them becomes extremely difficult, and yet this is regarded as beautiful! Did Hsi Shih and Wang Chao-chun, our two ancient beauties, ever have their feet cut in half?
If you try to discover the cause of footbinding, it is none other than male lewdness. This is a practice which must be avoided by the virtuous and eradicated by the Sage.
Li Ju-chen voiced his intellectual protest a century and a half ago, at a time when the craze for tiny feet must have been near its acme of popularity. While an effective critic, Li preferred to present his views in the form of fictional narrative. His contemporary Yuan Mei (1716-98), a famous poet, critic, and essayist, opposed footbinding openly and directly. In Tu-wai yu-yen he commented: