Looking at Chinese Culture in Bound Feet, Western Dress: A Memoir

Looking at Chinese culture as it is depicted in Bound Feet, Western Dress: A Memoir from the perspective of one raised in America in the late twentieth century, Yu-i's experience of gender as a social construction may at first glance appear to be a wholly negative one. On the contrary, when examined with an awareness of the different lenses through which we view other cultures based on our own socialization, both the positive and negative experiences of gender in China provided by Yu-i's story become clear. When contrasted with her experiences of gender in Britain, Yu-i's experiences in China pale in comparison with regard to the strictly socialized gender roles she grows up with and the ramifications these roles have on the options provided her during her childhood and early marriage. While these experiences may carry with them an innate negative connotation for readers from America or other non-Asian ethnic backgrounds, it is important to note that they are not entirely without merit, as the knowledge of strict gender roles and the slightly progressive nature of her family provide Yu-i with a foundation upon which she later is able to build a new, more independent persona and explore the more loosely organized gender roles of other countries.

Bound Feet

The Chinese custom of foot binding is one that appears particularly heinous to modern readers, but is an experience that, upon closer inspection, provides Yu-i with a greater appreciation of her own unique situation as a Chinese woman who does not have bound feet, giving her a sense of liberation and freedom. Images of women's feet as "three inches of smelly, rotting flesh" (Dworkin 1) often cause people to hastily dismiss foot binding as the barbaric practice of an uneducated people. They often do not take the time to examine foot binding, or what it afforded young women who grew up during the transition from binding as a common practice to an illegal one, such as Yu-i, in more detail.