Forty years ago the Japanese ordered bound feet to be let out and strictly carried the order into effect. I was then in my thirties and was glad to let them out, because bound feet were very inconvenient. For example, I could not walk in the street in the rain. Besides, since my husband was an important local official, I had to form a model. But my feet were too small, and bled between the toes when being let out. I could not walk because of the pain. Local officials reported this to the police chief and the mayor. After examination, they permitted me not to let my feet out; that is why I still have bound feet today. (3)
The Japanese came when I was eight years old. My sisters then all had tiny feet. Gradually the Japanese decreed the end of footbinding, and they were very strict about it. My sisters wanted to let out their feet, while I had already done so, so we were not punished. I was nineteen when I married and let out my feet the following year because my husband wanted me to. He said that it was easier to walk without bound feet. I was stout, and he saw how awkward it was for me to walk. He was from Taichung city and understood women. ... I have now had “big” feet for more than fifty years, and am really embarrassed by this. (8)
When the Japanese sent down their order, I began to let out my feet. I immersed them in a jar of clear urine to soften the bones and was able to start letting them out by soaking them this way for one week. After that the bones opened, but the pain was so intense that I was unable to walk. I then became ill.
The Japanese burned faeces pots which they discovered [in the bedrooms, for being unsanitary]. Since women could not urinate and defecate on the outside [as men could in large earthen pots], they were very unhappy about this. [The Japanese may have done this to prevent women from spending most of their time, tiny-footed, concealed in their bedrooms.]
When I married, my foot was three inches. My husband, his mother, and his whole family were very happy about this. When the Japanese issued their decree, I was very pleased. I thought that it would be convenient to let them out and that I would no longer have to make shoes. My husband was head of the village and, as such, considered a model. Everyone therefore let out their feet [after I did]. But I found that I was unable to walk and therefore later had to rebind. (7)
My husband was then working for a Japanese organization. . . . My feet had been bound too long and were too small. They were not easily let out, so I did not unbind them. Even if I could have done so, I would not have, for I spent many years in getting my feet bound small. Feet let out were ugly! It was also very hard to walk on them. Once let out, they could not grow like natural feet nor remain like small feet. And that would be repulsive. (5)
When the Japanese prohibited footbinding, Mrs. Liang (9) also let her feet out but discovered that she couldn’t walk, so she had to bind them again. She was in her forties at the time. She replied to a question as to whether bound feet were beautiful by saying that it depended on the era. “If everyone binds their feet, the only thing to do is to bind them also. It is very fine that no one binds feet any longer.” (9)
Chinese revolutionaries strove to end footbinding by fiat, feeling that it was a corrupt and reactionary practice which kept women in ignorance and apathy. In March, 1911, Sun Yat-sen issued an order of prohibition, decrying it as an evil custom which hurt the family and wrought havoc on the nation. Sun portrayed the footbound as unbalanced and listless, rarely leaving the confines of home, and ignorant as a consequence. To ensure a sound national foundation, he demanded that the Ministry of Civil Affairs carry out the order in every province and heavily fine continued offenders. The reform movement enjoyed its greatest success in the large cities, but the countryside remained adamant. The northward march of the revolutionary armies in 1928 was attended by a series of provincial decrees which not only forbade footbinding but outlined ways to effect the task. In general, reliance was on inspection and dissuasion rather than on legal penalties, with foot emancipation meetings frequently convened. The gradual extension of educational opportunity also militated against the practice, and by the early thirties it was obvious that the aesthetic outlook of the Chinese male was changing. Many men who had formerly felt that a woman’s tiny foot was more important than her facial beauty were influenced by the influx of Western standards and became natural-foot advocates. “Everything new is beautiful, everything old is ugly.” Women with bound feet found themselves deserted or divorced. This psychological change in male viewpoint made it obvious that the custom would eventually vanish, even without recourse to propaganda or coercion.
Footbinding flourished in Taiwan until 1915. Japanese authorities deplored the practice, but at first were afraid that positive commands against it might increase the state of unrest and further hamper their efforts to secure the island militarily. However, by April 15, 1915, the twentieth anniversary of Taiwan’s occupation by Japan, the Governor-General felt that the time for action had arrived. Footbinding was prohibited by official decree and the effect was immediate; more than 700,000 women complied. This figure increased yearly, owing to both government prohibition and a gradual shift in public sentiment. Statements of our informants make it clear that the Japanese were not above resorting to brutality when necessary to force compliance from stubborn conservatives.
O. When did this practice originate?
Not every lady was asked this question. Two replied (1, 9) that it originated with the Chou dynasty (ca. 11th century b.c.). A sixty-one-year-old Taiwanese named Lai Jan, father of one interviewer, furnished us with a popular account of its origin:
Chou-wang, the last ruler of the Shang dynasty, was extremely cruel and merciless. He especially hated T’ang Wu, one of the feudal princes under his command, and plotted his death incessantly. He once killed one of T’ang Wu’s sons, made a meat stew of the corpse, and ordered T’ang Wu to either eat the meat or be killed for disobeying a royal decree. T’ang Wu did as told, but vomited each bite; each morsel of flesh he spit out became a rabbit. This is how rabbits originated. The act was indicative of T’ang Wu’s supernatural powers.
T’ang Wu had a beautiful daughter named Ta-chi, whom Chou-wang coveted and was about to summon. Ta-chi was so grieved at this that she became ill. A fox spirit over a thousand years old then entered Ta-chi’s body; it was in the external form of Ta-chi that the spirit joined Chou-wang’s harem. Chou-wang was delighted and spent days and nights in its company, oblivious to affairs of state. The fox spirit could change into human form in every detail but the feet, which remained its own. To conceal this fact, it bound its paws in white cloth. When the emperor asked why, it said this had been done to prevent the foot from growing and to preserve its beauty. The fox then danced to music beside a lotus pond in such a lovely way that its feet were praised as three-inch lotuses. Chou-wang was so delighted that he ordered every woman in the empire to bind her feet, and from this time on the practice of footbinding in China became universal. The dissolute sovereign was finally overthrown in a revolution led by T’ang Wu.