I am currently on page 106/208 pages of the book Bound Feet and Western Dress, which is in fact the book I'm planning on doing for my book project. This book is a memoir and is written by the great- niece of a very independant and 'rebellious' Chinese woman who grew up during the fall of the Communist Revolution in China. It tells the reader how 'Yu-I,' Natasha Chang's great-aunt suffered during her childhood due to the specialization of men and the degrading of women in China, at that time.
There are two main characters. One of the characters is Yu-I. She is the great-aunt of the writer. She was one of the only daughters (among 5 in her family) who wished to have an education. It was incredibly difficult for her to do this as in early 20th century China, women had hardly any rights and were treated just as portrayals of beauty, to the extent that they had to go through the painful process of having their feet bound to show their 'wealth' and 'beauty.' 'Of course , my education was nowhere as severe as my brothers.' PG 47
Other than this, her family suffered economically for a while so this made it even harder for her to persuade her father to let her have an education or even go to school. Being as determined as she was she managed to get into a very cheap school rather far away from home.
Another disadvantage of being a woman at that time was that you could not choose who you would marry, and had to rely on your father to choose for you. Since Yu-I's family believed that the first sister in her family could not married until later, Yu-I found out who she would marry at the age of only 13. She had no choice.
Natasha Chang, the writer and also another character in the book, grew up in America and went to American schools all her life. Although she had heard extensive stories of China from her great-aunt she had no idea of the difficulties of being a woman in China until she grew older. Although she was practically American, she felt 'ashamed' of being Chinese. She felt embarrassed around the other kids at school and when she told her parents of this, all they said was 'you must marry a Chinese man.' 'Whenever something like that happened , I just wanted to dissapear' 'I did not want to be Chinese either.' PG 17
A character trait of Natasha Chang would definitely be naive. I think she would appreciate how lucky she is to live in America and have human rights if she knew more about the terrible situations in China.
There are two main characters. One of the characters is Yu-I. She is the great-aunt of the writer. She was one of the only daughters (among 5 in her family) who wished to have an education. It was incredibly difficult for her to do this as in early 20th century China, women had hardly any rights and were treated just as portrayals of beauty, to the extent that they had to go through the painful process of having their feet bound to show their 'wealth' and 'beauty.' 'Of course , my education was nowhere as severe as my brothers.' PG 47
Other than this, her family suffered economically for a while so this made it even harder for her to persuade her father to let her have an education or even go to school. Being as determined as she was she managed to get into a very cheap school rather far away from home.
Another disadvantage of being a woman at that time was that you could not choose who you would marry, and had to rely on your father to choose for you. Since Yu-I's family believed that the first sister in her family could not married until later, Yu-I found out who she would marry at the age of only 13. She had no choice.
Natasha Chang, the writer and also another character in the book, grew up in America and went to American schools all her life. Although she had heard extensive stories of China from her great-aunt she had no idea of the difficulties of being a woman in China until she grew older. Although she was practically American, she felt 'ashamed' of being Chinese. She felt embarrassed around the other kids at school and when she told her parents of this, all they said was 'you must marry a Chinese man.' 'Whenever something like that happened , I just wanted to dissapear' 'I did not want to be Chinese either.' PG 17
A character trait of Natasha Chang would definitely be naive. I think she would appreciate how lucky she is to live in America and have human rights if she knew more about the terrible situations in China.
Wow, this book sounds really interesting, and quite an eye opener. Are you enjoying it?
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