Splendid Slippers: A Thousand Years of an Erotic Tradition

Rating:
Summary: One step closer to understanding
Review: Ah, fashion...all over the world and for centuries we ladies have influenced humanity with what we wear. This is the perfect starter book for anyone who wants a little clearer picture of the ancient practice of footbinding. A fine read with lovely pictures, this book doesn't belittle the ladies who designed and wore these slippers. Worth having by all means.

Rating:
Summary: Reply to reviewers who are of Chinese descent
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Reply to reviewers who are of Chinese descent
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: personally grandmammy
Review: great pictures.

my grandmother and great grandmother were golden lotus girls. and as far as i can remember, my grandmother told me that only very selected few people who were wealthy could afford to have their daughters crippled. she did mention that girls with golden lotus feet fetched a higher dowry.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful book.
Review: This book will delight anyone with an interest in textiles, Far-East history or history of women's role in society. Absolutely one of the most beautifully photographed books I've ever seen. Fascinating text makes this book difficult to open without reading cover to cover, though interestingly, this book is not gender specific. Many friends have commented on having to wrestle it away from their husbands. As a 20 year collector of Ching textiles it has become the most cherished book in my library.

Rating:
Summary: Homage to the women who survived!
Review: 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!

Rating:
Summary: Certain errors in the book
Review: 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!