How did ancient women's foot binding achieve "fragrance"?
In ancient times, girls usually began to bind their feet at the age of five or six. The method is to break the four toes except the big toe and bend them to the soles of the feet with long strips of cloth to form a "three-inch golden lotus" in the shape of bamboo shoots. Its tragic pain can be imagined, which is generally under the pressure of elders. Mothers or grandmothers ignore their children's tears and shouts to fulfill their responsibilities and ensure their children's future marriage.
This kind of artificial disability behavior can be widely popular because it creates a unique "feminine beauty" in an artificial way. There were poems praising the beauty of women's feet before the Five Dynasties, and the tangled feet after the Five Dynasties were even called "Golden Lotus", "Incense Hook" and "Step by Step Lotus" and so on. Scholars even summed up Jiao Xiao's "four beauties" (shape, quality, posture and spirit) and "three beauties" (fat, softness and beauty). To the Qing dynasty. Foot binding is very popular, and there are no Han women who don't do it.
Foot binding is a serious harm to women's body and mind. However, this bad habit lasted for thousands of years, and even the Qing government strictly prohibited it.
China has a classic swear word, which is used to criticize the speaker's big and inappropriate remarks, and that is: "The Queen Mother's Foot-binding Cloth". This is actually a two-part allegorical saying, the second half of which is "smelly and long". The smelly and long foot-binding cloth is naturally made by lazy people. Why is it detained on the "Queen Mother" is really puzzling. Does this two-part allegorical saying include the history of foot binding? Does the history of women's foot-binding in China start from the era of the Queen Mother? If according to the archaeological point of view, the Queen Mother is the Queen Mother of the West, then the history of foot binding should be five thousand years ago.
However, archaeological excavations have proved that the foot bones of a female corpse 1000 years ago were not bent, but still feet. So this rambling textual research failed. So, where did the history of foot binding actually begin? Historians put forward a hypothesis based on the existing literature, which will become an accepted fact if it is not refuted by the body of a woman with small feet suddenly unearthed in a larger era. The cruelty of this fact is that we have to get to know Li Yu again, the talented but unsuccessful Southern Tang Emperor.
Tao's Record of Dropping Out of Farming in the South Village tells us that Li Yu, the queen of the Southern Tang Dynasty, ingeniously wrapped her bow shoes with long cloth instead of socks on the aesthetic basis of the Tang people's obsession with bow shoes. He did experiments on concubines and mothers, pioneered the method of foot binding, and created a record of female foot binding in China.
There is also a saying that foot binding began in the Tang Dynasty and originated from Persian dance. The Southern Tang Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty are not far apart. Moreover, the theory that foot binding originated from dance is more credible than before. Maybe Li Houzhu's mother is just a famous foot-binder, not a pioneer?
What's so remarkable about Feet compared with Feet, which makes it a fashion and has been circulating for so long? How to stop it?
Foot literature
When men shouted "Hair and skin are influenced by parents" and refused to hurt themselves, they were driven by an almost abnormal sexual psychology, and the beauty of women's feet was passed down from mouth to mouth. "Thin desires are invisible, the more you look at them, the more pity you get", "Three-inch golden lotus" and "If you are soft without bones, the more you kiss, the more you can resist friction". Some people even described the collapse formed between two severely deformed feet as "two-wheeled meniscus", which was really deliberate to the extreme. Wu Cheng'en, a great scholar, turned Guanyin Bodhisattva, which was originally a man, into a beautiful woman in the The Journey to the West, and it was Guanyin with little feet: "Yuhuan wears embroidered buttons, and the golden lotus is deep at the foot." (The twelfth time, Guanyin is like a golden cicada), which shows how obsessed the atmosphere of the Ming Dynasty is with Xiaozu! In the Ming Dynasty, the first criterion for a man to choose a spouse was whether a woman's feet were small enough, and men also played with prostitutes' slender feet, so they were dubbed "smelly husbands".
What's more, there was a man named Fang Xuan in Qing Dynasty, who called himself "Shi Huayu" and was also called "Dr. Xiang Lian". It can be said that it is a "monograph" on China women's feet binding from many angles and directions. At the same time, it also reflects the rich association, aesthetic taste and aesthetic requirements of the feudal literati for Xiang Lian. In this sense, Pinzao can also be said to be a work of "Xiang Lian Aesthetics". In this way, the book "Xiang Lian five views" section says:
If you have the ability to look at water, you must look at it; If you can see the lotus, you must look at its steps. The villain idled around at work and practiced these five techniques to catch him off guard, so he had to put on his fake body and expose himself.
Facing the wind; Step on a ladder; Low order; Get on the sedan chair; Cross the bridge.
What do you mean? Dr. Fang Da said: Those who have the skill of watching the sea must watch its waves; Those who observe Xiang Lian's skills must observe his steps. And the villain has nothing to do at home, which will only cover its disadvantages and show its advantages. If you exercise these five techniques and attack them unprepared, you can "take the truth and discard the falsehood" and make them appear. The "five techniques" are: step against the wind; Step on a ladder; Walk down the steps; The step of getting on the sedan chair; Steps to cross the bridge. It can be said that this is a passage that reflects his level as a "flower critic" and "Dr. Xiang Lian", and it is an authentic work that teaches people when to look at a woman's little feet and when to look at "exposed clues". Come to think of it, this "five skills" is originally a place where people's feet have nowhere to hide. Fang Xuan's meticulous observation of life and good intentions are beyond people's reach.
In the book, Fang Xuan classifies women's feet in detail according to their appearance: they are called "four-photo lotus" (straight, thin and thin, between three and four inches); Yue's "Phnom Penh Lotus" (Xin Wei's roads are uniform, with more than four inches and less than five inches); Say "lotus head" (thin and slender feet, so-called bamboo shoots); Yue's "Single Leaf Lotus" (slender curved foot); Yue's "Fotoulian" (the instep is full and bulging, such as the Buddha's head bun, the so-called water chestnut style, that is, the goose's head foot called in Jiangnan); Say "Andrographis paniculata" (wearing high-heeled shoes); Say "Bitailian" (wearing high-heeled shoes); Say "head-to-head lotus" (walking with eight feet); Yue's "Ice Lotus" (little feet and big toes); Say "upside down lotus" (feet with backward heels); Say "Asahi Lotus" (little feet walking with heels); Say "Xiang Lian" (feet with legs turned outwards); Say "concentric lotus" (feet with legs turned inward); Say "look at the lotus" (your feet are crooked when you walk); "Twist the Lotus" (a little foot that walks a line); "Chiba Lotus" (six inches, seven inches, eight inches); Yue "Jade Mirror Lotus" (feet like a boat); It's called "Passion Fruit" (a lotus flower that became a monk halfway, or a little foot that has never been entangled at all).
If the "Five Techniques" mentioned above is a remarkable discovery, then the "Eighteen Xiang Lian" can be regarded as a great invention, and at the same time, it has pushed the achievements of Little Foot Literature to the peak.
The painful price of aesthetic taste in Two Golden Lotus
However, women who follow the trend seriously pay the price of freedom for the aesthetic taste implied by "two golden lotus flowers". Zhu, a respected father, strongly advocates foot binding, which is the foundation of the great governance in the world, because women can separate men and women through foot binding, "giving and receiving without kissing" and "staying in the boudoir". Yes, even if you can't walk steadily, aren't women "honest"
But as "Night Rain and Autumn Lights Record" said: "The worst thing in the world is the voice of women's foot-binding, the voice of the Lord's governor and servant, and the voice of young birds." Who will "pity" this kind of pain?
Archibald Lide (also known as Mrs Lide), an English missionary who has lived in China for many years, recorded the tragic childhood of a girl in China who bound her feet exquisitely with women-"In these three years, the childhood of a girl in China is the most miserable. They didn't laugh, ... poor! These little girls lean heavily on crutches taller than themselves, or lie on the backs of adults, or sit and cry sadly. There are several deep black lines under their eyes, and there is a particularly strange pallor on their faces, which can only be seen when they are connected with their feet. Their mother usually puts a long bamboo pole beside the bed to help them stand up and beat their daughter who cries day and night and annoys her family ... For her daughter, the only relief is to smoke opium or hang her feet on Xiao Mu's bed to stop blood circulation. In the process of foot-binding, China girl narrowly escaped death. What is more cruel, however, is that some baby girls are often strangled in the cradle because of their parents' feelings. ..... The pain of tying feet is imposed on the girl because it conforms to the unnatural taste of the middle-aged father. "
"Two Golden Lotus" is no less than an insidious spell, which has made the other half of history moan for thousands of years.
The difficulty of letting go
The wise Emperor Kangxi once banned Han people from foot binding, and the offenders blamed their parents. A senior official said that "to enlarge the feet first for the minister's wife's play" became a laughing stock for a while (see "Talking about the Garden"), showing the strength of the "charm" of foot binding. Although vigorous, but the effect is not great. In the seventh year of Kangxi, Wang Xi, the minister, requested the lifting of the ban, which was approved. As a result, folk foot-binding prevailed, which influenced Manchu women to get up and bind their feet. Gan Long has repeatedly banned it. Gan Long's ban only stopped the foot-binding of Manchu women, while Han folk women still balked. Kang Youwei, a modern reformer, wrote an article "No Foot-binding", hoping that the people in his hometown would give up the bad habit of foot-binding and make up their minds not to bind their feet for their daughters. This move greatly excluded Kang Youwei from his hometown.
Mrs. Lide, a British missionary, initiated the "Tianzu Movement" and established the "Tianzu Club" in southern China in the early 20th century. At the Victoria Theatre in Hankou, the president of the Chamber of Commerce personally arranged seats for government officials and listened to Mrs. Lide's speech. Her audience are all dressed in official clothes, with attendants and big shelves. They think it is inconceivable for a woman to discuss with them the sensitive topic of China people-women's feet. The intimidation of officials frightened her translator into backing out. Fortunately, a missionary who spoke excellent Chinese came to the rescue and Mrs. Lide's speech was carried out. With the help of authoritative sources, Mrs. Lide asked Zhang Zhidong to write a quotation against foot-binding in red paper and post it in the venue, with good results. She thinks that Zhang Zhidong is the most learned governor in China. In Hanyang, at the publicity rally, she made the liberated women stand up. They stood up in front of everyone with a smile, and Mrs. Lide thought the trip to Hubei was a success.
She has almost traveled all over southern China, including Wuchang, Hanyang, Guangdong and Hongkong, as well as Macau, Shantou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Hangzhou and Suzhou. It really takes a lot of courage for a foreign women. She said, "If you remember my feelings when I first stepped into the cold sea when I was a child, then you can understand my feelings when I left for southern China to publicize against foot binding. I am a stranger there, and foot binding is one of the oldest and deepest customs in China. " But she still stepped into the ice cave. Foot-binding, a barbaric custom that tortured women in China all their lives, gave her deep stimulation. She was rewarded. Many men and women donated money to the Tianzu Club on the spot, saying that there was no foot binding, and they also advised other women not to do so.
At the rally in Guangzhou, nine women threw away the foot wrap on the spot.
Of course, it is not because of Mrs. Lide that women in China don't bind their feet, but as a person from "imperialism", it is commendable that she can do so. This behavior even directly affected Empress Dowager Cixi and the first few reforms in the "New Deal" of Empress Dowager Cixi, including 1 February 9021day, which issued an imperial edict saying that officials could discourage foot binding.
In the book, Fang Xuan classifies women's feet in detail according to their appearance: they are called "four-photo lotus" (straight, thin and thin, between three and four inches); Yue's "Phnom Penh Lotus" (Xin Wei's roads are uniform, with more than four inches and less than five inches); Say "lotus head" (thin and slender feet, so-called bamboo shoots); Yue's "Single Leaf Lotus" (slender curved foot); Yue's "Fotoulian" (the instep is full and bulging, such as the Buddha's head bun, the so-called water chestnut style, that is, the goose's head foot called in Jiangnan); Say "andrographis paniculata" (wearing high-heeled shoes); Say "Bitailian" (wearing high-heeled shoes); Say "head-to-head lotus" (walking with eight feet); Yue's "Ice Lotus" (little feet and big toes); Say "upside down lotus" (feet with backward heels); Say "Asahi Lotus" (little feet walking with heels); Say "Xiang Lian" (feet with legs turned outwards); Say "concentric lotus" (feet with legs turned inward); Say "look at the lotus" (your feet are crooked when you walk); "Twist the Lotus" (a little foot that walks a line); "Chiba Lotus" (six inches, seven inches, eight inches); Yue "Jade Mirror Lotus" (feet like a boat); It's called "Passion Fruit" (a lotus flower that became a monk halfway, or a little foot that has never been entangled at all).
If the "five methods" mentioned above is a remarkable discovery, then the "eighteen methods of Xiang Lian" can be regarded as a great invention, and at the same time, it has pushed the achievements of the little foot literature to the peak.