Prior to taking this wonderful history class I had the opportunity to read a book that awoke my curiosity about China. History in general is a fascinating way to travel with our minds and learn more about our past, about what made us a society, how did we get to be what we are.
The book that I mentioned earlier is called Snow Flower and The Secret Fan by Lisa See. The story takes place in nineteenth-century China, in a remote Hunan county, where a girl named Lily, at the tender age of seven, is paired with a laotong, or “old same”, in an emotional match that will last a lifetime. As the years pass, Lily and Snow Flower send messages to each-other on a fan and compose stories on handkerchiefs, as a way to escape their reality, a way to share their dreams and hopes. They also …show more content…
I was completely shocked and in awe to learn about this tradition. It was overwhelming to read about it, and I recounted this subject again, in my history book: “ The custom had begun centuries earlier when fascination with ballerina of the court led many young women to desire tiny feet, no more than three inches long, known as “golden lilies” (Schoppa 75).
“Footbinding began in the Song dynasty, probably in the late eleventh century. Although the big toe was not bound, the rest of the foot was wrapped in long bindings. A woman’s feet became a private body part, to be seen only by herself, her mother, and later her husband” (Schoppa 76).
According to a story, an emperor had a favorite concubine, a dancer who built a gilded stage in the shape of a lotus flower. When she bound her feet into a hoof-like shape and danced on the lotus, the practice became very trendy; she was the emperor's favorite concubine and the other concubines attempted to imitate her in order to gain the emperor's favor. So foot binding started with the royal court and then spread throughout China, beginning in the south of the country and soon reaching the