Splendid Slippers: A Thousand Years of an Erotic Tradition

This is just a gorgeous book. I bought it to use in a class that I taught on culture. It has great "shock" value in terms of educating students about the power of culture over physical circumstances and "voluntary" body alteration. I do have an appreciation for the craftsmanship of the tiny slippers as well. Lovely.

Subtitled "A Thousand Years of an Erotic Tradition", this 1997 book measures 10" by 10" square. On the cover is a photograph of more than two dozen authentic shoes which were handmade for the tiny bound feet of Chinese women. I've always been interested in learning more about this custom, and this book clearly explains every single thing I've ever wanted to know. The author is an American photojournalist whose travels often took her to China. Often, she would find some of these tiny shoes in a market and started collecting them. She also did a lot of historical research and interviewed many elderly Chinese women who still can remember the details of their childhood foot binding. Some of them even allowed her to photograph their bare misshapen feet. Foot binding has been outlawed in China since the Communist revolution. Women born after this time grow up with normal feet. But before 1949, little girls had to endure a painful childhood. It must have been awful but people really believed that if this wasn't done, the young girl would have no chance of getting a husband. Indeed, this was true. Marriages were arranged and the future mother-in-law would insist on seeing a shoe that the girl had embroidered. If the shoe was very small, it would be understood that the girl could withstand pain. If the embroidery was good, it would prove that the girl was well disciplined. The men also wanted wives with bound feet. Not only did it reflect on the man's wealth and standing in the community but it was also an erotic turn-on. They say that one picture is worth a thousand words, and this book certainly proves it. There are many pictures of the tiny shoes and of the women wearing them. I was impressed by the complexity of the workmanship and their startling beauty. But the most moving of all were the photos of the bare feet themselves. Looking at them gave me a sick and uncomfortable feeling. I loved this book because it opened my mind to a culture that is very foreign to me. It made me understand exactly what these women's lives had been for more than ten centuries. Yes, I was saddened. But I was also enlightened. I learned something. And that made this book very worthwhile. This is a beautiful book. I highly recommend it. But it is certainly not for the squeamish.

As author of SPLENDID SLIPPERS I was not surprised to read these two recent reviews by women of Chinese descent, which are factually absolutely incorrect. Sadly they have been badly misinformed by elder relatives who are needlessly ashamed of the custom of footbinding, or themselves were honestly ignorant of the actual facts. Or possibly the reviewers are of Manchu rather than Han Chinese descent. When the Manchu invaded China in 1644, the Emperor forbid Manchu women from binding their feet. Only the Han Chinese, and many of the Minority People, bound. So Manchu women may not know the true facts of footbinding.I spent almost seven years researching the subject of footbinding before writing my book. I have read hundreds of books with information on the subject, and traveled through China many times, with English-speaking Chinese guides, interviewing a tremendous number of older women with bound feet, and their husbands. Photos of several of them, which tell the story better than I can here, appear in the book. And may I say not one of these elderly women I interviewed with tiny lotus feet had ever seen more than a life of poverty in mountain huts or little villages, rising at before sunrise helping to care for her family, and after marriage her own children, husband and husband's parents, foraging for firewood, working in the rice fields,yam fields, or whatever poor little crops the families tried to raise, since they were little girls with newly bound feet.As I explain in my book, in the beginning period of footbinding (approximately 950 AD) only women in the palace bound their feet, then the custom spread to minor nobility. Eventually it spread to the newly rich merchant class. However, by the 17th century about 96% of all Han Chinese girls had their feet bound.Chinese experts estimate that more than four and one half BILLION Han Chinese, and some Minority People women, have bound their feet the past 1,000 years. In cities such as Peking, Canton and Shanghai, and other wealthy areas, there were of course affluent women and they did indeed have bound feet. But the majority of the women of China have always been the peasants who live at poverty, or almost poverty, level. And the majority of them for 1,000 years had bound feet.

While this book has exquisite color photos of astonishingly beautiful shoes sewn by the women who wore them together with sepia tones from decades past & current snapshots in modern day China, the subject of this book, the millennium old tradition of binding little girls' feet for the express purpose of enticing their husbands' sexual advances, is heartbreaking. Beverley Jackson, however, doesn't allow you to wallow in pity & neither do the last few ladies she interviewed. Even as they have had to totter en pointe for all of their lives, they have climbed stairways to temples, congregated in market places & generally had good lives. Since the Communist Revolution, however, they have been pariahs, symbols of a decadent past & their works of art & memories have been suppressed. Until this big-footed American strode into their lives, showed them her collection of Splendid Slippers & listened to their stories. A marvelous book, one of a kind & going into its second printing. Very well done!

Gorgeous photographs in both color and archival B & W. This well-researched book covers the brutality of Chinese foot binding and its societal impact in very objective detail. No feminist rants or amateur anthropology. Definitely a worthwhile read for anyone who's interested in women's issues and the best book I've seen on this obscure subject.