Free Chinese Footbinding Essays and Papers

Chinese Footbinding In addressing the subject of footbinding, one primary difficulty becomes apparent - that much remains within the realm of the unknowable. Any factual knowledge about the practice may only be drawn from 19th- and 20th-century writings, drawings or photographs. In addition, many of these documents represent a distinctly Western point of view, as they are primarily composed of missionary accounts and the literature of the various anti -footbinding societies.[1] The historical

The ancient Chinese custom of footbinding caused severe life-long suffering for the Chinese women involved. When researching the subject of footbinding, one of the difficult things is finding factual knowledge written before the 20th century. Most of the historical data has been gathered from writings, drawings and photographs from the 19th and 20th centuries. Additionally, the research indicates that the historical documentation was mainly from missionary accounts and literature from various anti-footbinding

he act of “footbinding” in China was a grotesque mutilation of the foot as well as an act to disempower women and enforce the concept of female chastity. Although horrific, Chinese women participated in this act for one thousand years. Deeply rooted in tradition, young girls were required to participate or face uncertain futures. The first documented cases of foot binding in the Chinese culture originated between the T’ang and Sung Dynasties (907-959 A.D.). Due to the Chinese society being

The Ancient Chinese Custom of Footbinding The ancient Chinese custom of footbinding has caused severe life-long suffering for the Chinese women involved. The first documented reference to footbinding was from the Southern Tang Dynasty in Nanjing. It was introduced in the 11th century and spread from the ranks of the wealthy to those of more modest means to peasantry. A main reason women did this was for the pleasure of men. Men preferred women with small feet and sexual urges weren't present

Chinese Women Traditional Chinese society was patriarchal, patrilineal, and patrilocal. In this male dominated society, sons were preferred to daughters, and women were expected to be subordinate to their fathers, husbands, and sons. Because marriages were arranged, young women and men had virtually no voice in the decisions on their marriage partner, resulting in loveless marriages. Once married, it was the woman who left her family and community and went to live with her husband’s family, where

birth of footbinding, there are a few theories. One deals with the Shang dynasty's last empress' malformed feet. Some say she had club feet, bound them in attempts to distil beauty from malformation, and convinced her "spouse to make the compression of feet obligatory for young girls" (Levy, 37). Another scenario involves the Mongols attempting to impair the health of the Chinese women in order to weaken the Chinese. Still another theory, and possibly the most credible, involves the Chinese women

British-Chinese Relations in the Nineteenth Century and Alicia Bewicke Little's Novel, A Marriage in China The year was 1842, and Britain had just finished a successful military campaign in China, a campaign that also signified a rather humiliating defeat for the Chinese army. The first Opium War reestablished Britain's profitable opium trade routes from India to China, and also established a new mode of British-Chinese relations, one that resulted in British control of the new colony of Hong

The Changing Image of Women Position in Chinese Film Since 1950s Since 1950s, after the Chairman Mao Zedong’s Yanán conference, art and literature had strictly become tools of promoting the ideology of Communist Party, that is, the product of art and literature in China can be classified as highly popanganda. Chairman Mao Zedong and his Communist Party strongly suggested the equality of both genders - male and female. To promote Mao’s theory, certain kind of strong female character's image had

Chinese Kinship Systems Works Cited Missing It would be impossible to disagree with the statement that “Chinese kinship is based on male predominance”. In fact this statement may even be under-emphasizing the control and absolute power that males wield across all levels of Chinese society. Of course, where their power initially comes from though, is through the family or termed differently the “jia”. It is this extended or ideal family that cultivates the consistent patrilineal form of control/descent

China. During the first few years when China was in control of Tibet, the Chinese declared that Tibet should be part of China, because an Emperor of Tibet once married a Chinese princess. Years later, the Chinese said that Tibet was part of China because of the warrior Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan and the Mongolians were in control of Tibet, but they never made Tibet belong to China. Secondly, the Tibetan people and the Chinese are totally different, culturally and socially speaking. Both peoples have