Three-inch golden lotus

Author: Feng Jicai
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: People say, "Little feet hide a history of China," this is mystical! Three-inch small feet are only slightly longer than a cigarette, and throughout adulthood, they are bound by foot-binding cloth, making them suffocating. Apart from the smell, what else is there inside? History unfolds in segments. One dynasty rises while another falls, and in the midst of decline, another rises amidst chaos. The rise and fall, the turmoil, have caused the common people no peace. It interferes with eating, drinking, dressing, and wearing, but it never affects the matter of foot-binding. From Li Houzhu to the Xuantong Emperor, women's foot-binding flourished for a thousand years. Throughout the dynasties that changed and the era names that were altered, foot-binding never ceased. What did history have to do with it? From the empresses and concubines at the top to the fisherwomen and village girls at the bottom, from the literary Li Qingzhao to the martial Liang Hongyu, who did not bind their feet? Monkeys don't bind their feet, I believe. When the Qing Dynasty entered the Central Plains, they issued an edict prohibiting Manchu women from binding their feet and ordering Han Chinese to go barefoot. At that time, the Qing Dynasty was fierce, but even their fierceness could not surpass foot-binding. Moreover, whether it was fierce or not, it was not just about the moment. In the end, the Han Chinese continued to bind their feet, while the Manchu women secretly bound their feet, pretending to their parents. This suggests that foot-binding holds some magic! Whether it does or not, let's leave that aside. In Three Inches of Gold, one intention is to use a wealth of historical details—photographs of actual artifacts—to reconstruct the once-living, strange history and the unimaginable world of three-inch gold feet, exposing the hidden, locked, and dark corners of this culture. The ghost of history always lurks behind some veil, unwilling to leave, subtly influencing things. Therefore, when a scene of history passes, what we should do is pull back the heavy curtain.