Aching for Beauty: Footbinding in China

When Wang Ping was nine years old, she secretly set about binding her feet with elastic bands. Footbinding had by then been outlawed in China, women’s feet “liberated,” but at that young age she desperately wanted the tiny feet her grandmother had–deformed and malodorous as they were. By first examining the root of her own girlhood desire, Wang unleashes a fascinating inquiry into a centuries-old custom.
Aching for Beauty combines Wang’s unique perspective and remarkable literary gifts in an award-winning exploration of the history and culture surrounding footbinding. In setting out to demystify this reviled tradition, Wang probes an astonishing range of literary references, addresses the relationship between beauty and pain, and discusses the intense female bonds that footbinding fostered. Her comprehensive examination of the notions of hierarchy, femininity, and fetish bound up in the tradition places footbinding in its proper context in Chinese history and opens a window onto an intriguing culture.

Publishers Weekly

The earliest mention of foot binding in Chinese history may date to the 21st century B.C., when the founder of the Xia dynasty was said to have married a "fox fairy with tiny feet." Practiced by royal women and their courtiers since approximately the 11th century A.D., foot binding was eventually taken up by commoners as well, with all classes striving to achieve three-inch "lotus feet." The "breaking process" began for girls between the ages of five and seven, "when their bones were still flexible" and they were "mature enough" to comprehend the importance of the practice. Novelist (Foreign Devil), short story writer (American Visa) and poet (Of Flesh and Spirit), Ping illustrates that the two-year rite of passage not only introduced young girls to pain (it involved breaking bones and "peeling... rotten flesh") but also initiated them into a "permanent bonding with [their] mother[s] and female ancestors," shaped in part by the difficulty of communicating pain through words. Ping, who has a Ph.D. in comparative literature, looks to language and literature in examining the deep cultural and power structures involved in this agonizing tradition. Referencing such heavy-hitting theorists as Derrida, Lacan and Foucault, Ping's prolific source notes also attest to an intriguing variety of sources--from Eve Ensler's hip and contemporary The Vagina Monologues to the remote Ming History of 1739. Although her language can be rather stiff and academic, Ping's spirited study should appeal to those intrigued by the mysterious link between violence and beauty. Photos. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Wang Ping’s books include American Visa, a collection of short stories; Foreign Devil, a novel; and Of Flesh and Spirit, a collection of poetry. Born in Shanghai, she holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from New York University and teaches creative writing at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota.