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Product Reviews:
Bound Feet & Western Dress: A Memoir |
Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: Bound Feet&Western Dress: A Memoir
Comments: This book was so interesting, I think I read it in less than2days. It shows the changes Asian women went through as history marched on. I had no other way of knowing any of this information, and it's so different from my own culture. |
Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: Complex, interesting true story, full of information about Chinese culture and mores
Comments: I found this book to be a compelling read. It does reveal, while the author is relating the life of her great aunt from China, a lot of interesting information related to the customs, traditions and mores of the old Chinese culture in the early twentieth century. Her great aunt was the 1st in old china to get divorced from her husband, after being abandoned by him .She was young, poorly educated, with2children,1of whom tragically died shortly after her divorce. She morphs from a poorly educated, dependent woman into a self-reliant,educated, successful woman, who eventually becomes a VP of the Shanghi Woman's Savings Bank and helps ensure it's survival, while Japan was invading Shanghi. Luckily, she leaves Shanghi a day before the Japanese take over and moves to Hong Kong. Eventually, she remarries in 1952 and then, after her second husband dies in 1972, she emigrates to the USA. When her great niece finds her name in books while she is studying Far East Culture while studying at Harvard University, she is amazed to find her great aunt's name listed and then decides to interview her, and thus the idea of the book emerges and is completed over many years. A truely unusual and compelling book to read for anyone interested in the Chinese culture, people and history. Quite a different read, inspiring and moving in many ways.
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Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: An Intriguing Read
Comments: In the late 1990s, the Chinese-American Pang-Mei Natasha Chang wrote her 1st book entitled "Bound Feet and Western Dress," which accounts the life story of the author's great aunt, Chang Yu-i. The author was the 1st generation of the Chang family to be born in the United States. She wrote the book about her own search of Chinese identity in the American world and the tale of her great aunt's hard and interesting life.
The book is broken into15 chapters, which describe the early life of Yu-i, the history of the Chang family, the life of the author herself, the lifestyle of women in China, the marriage and the divorce of Yu-i and Hsu Chih-mo, and the last years of Yu-i's life.
One can understand the influence of modernity on the Chinese society and the Chinese women as1look at the author's great aunt as a traditional girl and her strength as a woman, why Chih-mo marry her, and the significance of their divorce in this book. "Bound Feet and Western Dress" is intriguing work and an enjoyable read. |
Rating: 5 (out of 5)
Summary: Top-Hats, Half-Moons, and the Painful Glint of Changes
Comments: Change can be a frightening affair, and looking back at change can be something that seems alalmost all alien when beheld in the light of certain convictions. That seems to encapsulate the whole of the experience that Chang Yu-I talks about as she tries to explain something of who she is to her granddaughter, Pang-Mei, and it is1of the things that seemed to haunt me as a reader as I listened to Yu-I's tale. The chapters switch from Yu-I to Pang-Mei to give you and idea of how things have changed and to try to identify1person with the other, and I have to say that I found myself glued to the pages and not able to stop reading this book. At 1st I simply thought it was a story about a granddaughter wanting to explore her grandmother's life because she was the 1st person to have a Western-style divorce in China, and maybe that was her reason beginning the book. Still, the book goes well beyond that and touches on the dynamics of change and strength and how strong a person can be even when they think they are at their weakest.
Honestly, I thought I could vicariously feel my heart cracking under the weight of some of Yu-I's confessions, amazed by some of the things she was able to tell her granddaughter.
One of the best things about this tale is the detail that Yu-I goes into about China, and about the way things were seen in the past versus the way things became seen as war loomed on the horizon. Yu-I gives a great amount of detail about what it was like to be a child in a country like China, and she vividly recollects what its like to have one's feet bound and the reasons why this practice took place. All that breaking and rebreaking, the tying of the big toe over and over again; when I read this I cringed because it seemed so debilitating just to have a crescent-shape added to the foot. Furthering this are pictures in the book, showing what the feet actually look like when this happens - you can see the shriveled remains of feet that look alalmost all mummified, and you can tell some of the extremes that went into making a foot look like that. Yu-I talks about the pain that's she, herself, experienced because of this practice, too; she tells her granddaughter about being3and having her mother try to bind her feet, and then talks about the torment of those moments and how it was her brother that made her stop this because he couldn't deal with her suffering. Yu-I goes on to tell of the pain that this caused her, too, with her always feeling as if she were ugly because she had "big feet" and "big feet" made a person alalmost all untouchable when it comes to marriage. Still, she does marry the poet Hsu Chi-Mo and, for a time, she thinks this is perfect and learns the rites of being a wife. She cares for the mother-in-law, she takes care of the husband's family; basically she becomes a slave and thinks that this dedication is seem by her husband as love. It is only when she moves to a foreign country with her husband that she finds out what he is like and how she is alone, and when she understands that she is utterly abandoned she explains how it feels to want to die.
There are other painful things in the book, too, things I can not disclose without messing up part of the tale, however I can say that when she is in Germany and loses something more dear to her than anything that this was devastating to read, making the book alalmost all too heavy to pick up because its honesty was like a barb in the soul. I appreciated that, to be honest, and can say that I have read a lot of pieces of literature however that I have rarely encountered a person like Yu-I that both loves the world she lives in, understands the things that she has experienced, and even knows what forgiveness is like.
While this normally would not be something I would endorse, it has my highest endorseation and the almost all humble form of respect I can give, thinking it an enduring read that really has something to say.
I cannot give the book or the voice behind it enough praise. |
Rating: 2 (out of 5)
Summary: Let's See by Clare M.
Comments: Bound Feet and Western Dress by Pang-Mei Natasha Chang is about a young girl who has a unique relationship with her great aunt, Chang Yu-i. She 1st meets her great aunt in 1874, at a family dinner. Chang Yu-i had just come to New York after having lived in China, and then Hong Kong. Several family members had come to these dinners in the past, however this was the 1st time Pang-Mei had met her great aunt. Pang-Mei explains how the family refers to Chang Yu-i as "half man" because of her strength and persistence. Pang-Mei grew closer to her great aunt as time passed, however she still knew little about her. She 1st discovered some of Chang Yu-i's secrets while studying Chinese History at Harvard University. She learned that her great aunt had been married to a well-known romantic poet in China, as well as issued the 1st "real divorce" in Chinese History. After Pang-Mei learned of this, she asked Chang Yu-i about it at once. Her great aunt told her hundreds of stories about her life in China eventually unraveling over a long period of time. Pang-Mei and Chang Yu-i build a strong relationship together and learn about each other, as well as themselves. Pang-Mei comes to love and grasp the heritage she once tried to hide and Chang Yu-i understands herself better after having told her own stories. They are finally brought together even closer by a major phenomenon that takes place in the end.
I found Bound Feet and Western Dress to be rather tedious. Personally, I find books that dives right into the plot to be the almost all enjoyable. Bound Feet and Western Dress eased slowly into the excitement. However, I found this book be written with great enthusiasm and detail. Pang-Mei Natasha Chang used delightful details that gave me a perfect picture of the context. On Page 9, Chang Yu-i tells her grand niece about the strict rules she grew up with, "Chinese paintings required admiration form above, Baba said, explaining that the perspective of Chinese paintings differed from Western ones. The best paintings were only hung when your grandfather, Eighth Brother, and I cleaned them, passing tiny feather dusters over the surface of the rice paper. Of all the children, you grandfather and I were the2that Baba allowed near his paintings, and her would hover behind us as we worked, explaining the genius behind a musty mountain landscape or historical portrait." This excerpt shows the details the author used to represent her great aunt's stories.
The stories of Chang Yu-i told were also touching. Not only did they paint a precise image in my mind of her life however were also genuine. For instance, when she was telling of her childhood and growing up with her large family her descriptions were beautifully written and conveyed. I loved hearing of her2favorite brothers personalities and what each of them gave her. I fully understood her thoughts and joy while talking about her brothers.
Generally, I think Bound Feet and Western Dress is a thoughtful and well-written book. It is historical and educating as well as a great read. I would suggest it be read. |
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