women in east asian history

[clay dube]

For reasons of space, not all the readings Morgan would like you to have were included in the reader. The full readings and a couple not included at all are available to you as .pdf downloads. You need Adobe's free Acrobat reader to see and print these. You probably already have a copy on your computer. If not, you can get a copy at:

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Go to this page to download the articles:

http://international.ucla.edu/asia/ncta/utla/readings/pitelka_index.asp

Please note that these are provided for your educational use only. This is not a public webpage and sshould not be circulated.

[Anonymous]

This reply is a bit off topic from the view point of women writers, etc...but it does deal w/ women in Chinese history.
I went to a lecture awhile back and the person talking said that women in leadership roles in Buddhism was not uncommon, least of all forbidden, especially in Tibetan Buddhism.
He said that there were and still are various sects, and if the master dies w/out naming a successor, then that lineage will die out. That is what happened with the schools where women had leadership roles. Nothing sinister, no large conspiracy against women, instead, just one of those things that happens.
I'm wondering if anyone else has any insight to this?

[Anonymous]

I don't have any insight to this, but I found the story of Empress Wu quite interesting (Ebrey, Cosmo China Chapter 5). Was there an increase of women speaking out in Chinese history during or after her time. Or was she just seen as brazen and seductive, that only she was tolerated with this kind of "unusual" behavior?

jemila

[Anonymous]

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

I did not see a thread for movie reviews. I decided this is most suitable for women in East Asian history. The story takes place during Han Dynasty China, and it to me, it is more about women than men.

I was trying for a long time to find a Chinese drama or comedy movie, but everything I found had to do with martial art. I finally gave up and decided to settle for the “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”. I had seen it when it first came out with English subtitles, and I had found it boring (I have to either read or watch.).
Now after having taken this class, I watched the movie with a great deal of interest. The good thing was that this time I had the option of different languages (on the menu).
Although English was available to me I decided to watch it in Chinese. Did I understand any of it? Of course not! But I found myself turning up the volume when they were speaking softly. I could not turn the volume off. There is something about the quality of human voice; I had to hear the actors and actresses talk. Why do I not have that feeling of frustration when I watch Charlie’s silent movies? I even enjoy them.
Since I did not understand the words, I automatically concentrated on things that were not so essential to understanding the story. I paid more attention to the calligraphy Scenes. Just because it was introduced to us with more elaboration, now I appreciated it more. I paid attention to all the facial expression, the walking, and the architecture of the buildings, what kind of shoes and garments they had on, even the symbols on the sword. I owed fifty percent of that to not understanding the story.
I watched the movie a second time, in English. Boy, what a relief! Now I could see why there was so much running and chasing and fights. The story was beautiful. Although there was a lot of martial arts involved, but the movie could not be so joyful without the fights. For the first time I actually sat down, watched martial arts, and enjoyed it without feeling that I had wasted my time.
The story was actually a tragedy. Imagine two people who love each other all their lives, but none of them ever expresses their feelings for each other. They read their feelings in each other’s eyes, but they keep silent. And finally when at the last moments of his life the man holds the woman’s hand and reveals his feelings to her, it is too late. And when the woman finally is ready to kiss her beloved man, he is dead. She kisses the dead and cold lips of his man of dreams.
Another love relation which ends tragically is between Jen, and Lo. Jen takes her own life by flying off a mountain with the hope to have her wishes come true.

Both lovers are victims of their culture and traditions. In the first case Yu loves Li, but she stays silent because Li is devoted to his Monkshood and martial arts training, his lifestyle forbids him from getting married, and when he finally gives up that kind of life and gives his sword to the governor, he becomes so involved in search for the stolen sword that finds no chance to pursue his personal life.
As for the second case, between Jen and Lo, Jen is -according to the traditions- arranged for someone, by the family. She is not happy about this arrangement, yet she cannot marry her lover who is an outlaw, so there is only one way out, and that is to die and hope that her wishes come true.
[Edit by="rrustamzadeh on Nov 16, 11:48:05 PM"][/Edit]

[clay dube]

For the most part, it's probably best to discuss footbinding in the Asia in My Classroom forum. But here I wanted to provide some resources:

Footbinding is one of the topics that every teacher needs to discuss when looking at the varying experiences of Chinese women. It emerges about a thousand years ago and survived into the last century.

Not all women had their feet bound. Many non-Han ethnic groups such as the Hakka and Manchus did not bind their women's feet and it was much less common among ordinary people in the South than it was in the North, probably because women in the South usually joined in agricultural labor.

How are we to understand this custom and role men and women played in perpetuating it? How should we raise the topic with children? Is it enough to note that our own culture imposes standards of beauty that cause some to endure suffering, surgery, or psychological damage?

Below are some web resources on footbinding that you may find interesting.

California resident Beverly Jackson is a longtime collector of the shoes worn by Chinese women with bound feet. She traveled to China and interviewed women who had their feet bound and produced a lavishly illustrated volume Splendid Slippers. Her website offers short excerpts from the book, reviews of it, and -- of course -- a link to buy the volume. Combined with works by Howard Levy and Dorothy Ko, this is a good resource to draw upon in introducing the practice to students.

http://www.silcom.com/~bevjack/

Levy, Howard S. Chinese Footbinding: The History of a Curious Erotic Custom, Foreword by Arthur Waley. Introd. by Wolfram Eberhard. New York, W. Rawls, 1966.

Ko, Dorothy. Every Step a Lotus : Shoes for Bound Feet. Berkeley : University of California Press, 2001. Click here to see the UC Press webpage on the book. You can download and read chapter 2. It includes terrific images. Prof. Ko has also written "The Body as Attire: The Shifting Meanings of Footbinding in Seventeenth-Century China," The Journal of Women's History 8.4.
http://iupjournals.org/jwh/jwh8-4.html

Feng Jicai, one of China's most popular writers, authored an interesting novel on the custom and its place in family and social life. Three Inch Golden Lotus. It was translated by David Wakefield and published by the University of Hawaii press. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0824816064/103-0017646-1395814?v=glance

Yue-qing Yang's recent film Footbinding: The Search for the Three-Inch Golden Lotus is available and includes interviews with Chinese about the custom. In the film, Dorothy Ko argues that footbinding is routinely misunderstood. http://www.movingimages.bc.ca/catalogue/Cultdiverse/footbinding.html

[clay dube]

Morgan's sent his bibliography along and you can download it by clicking on the icon below.

[clay dube]

Hi Folks,

To download the .pdf version of Morgan Pitelka's presentation on women in East Asian history, please click here.click here

[Anonymous]

What an eye opener it was for me! I've always thought that women in any Asian country were treated like slaves by men and the society. Growing up in Korea, I was taught to be subservient to men. My mom had seven children and the oldest was a son. She kept having more children to have another son but failed. I had to live with that guilt for not being a son because she told me over and over again about how she thought I was a boy up until she gave birth to another girl. She was not willing to pay for my education because I was a girl. None of my sisters had any higher education than elementary school. Even when she sent her daughters to school reluctantly, they were not free from their duties, taking care of their younger siblings. So my sister carried us to school. Well, my two older sisters had so many absences they couldn't get the diploma either. They had done it themselves when they got older. My oldest sister supported me and my two other sisters to get the education while my mother objected it; she wanted us to get a job and support her. In the meantime, my brother dropped out of school even though my parents insisted that he should get the education. :@

[Anonymous]

Hi,CYU

I admire your courage to tell your story with so much honesty.
I wish you could tell us how you made it to college! Am I being nosy? I hope not. I just admire people like you.

REZA[Edit by="rrustamzadeh on Feb 2, 6:46:58 PM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

Thank you for sharing your story with us. Throughout our readings it was rare to read about powerful women. What happened?! At times we learned that women were part of the govenment, making decisions that were traditionally reserved for men. Then we hear about more change, where the status of women is below a man.

How or why does the view of women flow from contempt or disgust to respect and/ or tolerance?

This is stemming from my small bit of research while working on my web page for seminar. I was looking through notes and re-reading a few things. C. Yu, your story reminded me about my question.

jem

[Anonymous]

Since you asked, Reza,

I actually didn't go to high school; I wanted to escape from my parents' "oppression" and left home to find a job. My oldest sister took me in later and supported me to pass GED and on to the college for two years in Korea. She brought me here to continue my education. I consider my life a miracle, for I know not how I've come so far. 😀

[Anonymous]

Jem, I have the same question as you. I thought woman's subservience was due to the influence by Confusianism because it heavily influenced Korean social structure. I found it extremely hard to break this stereotypical view on woman because others expect me to be that way too. I was a rebel, trying to go against the stream and suffered grief. Believe it or not, I enjoy being a woman I am now and thank God for it, too. What changed? I changed how I look at myself.

[Anonymous]

I had no idea that Chinese women played such a role in the makings of California history. Below is my review of the book, Unsubmissive Women : Chinese Prostitutes in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco (by Benson Tong).

When news of the California Gold Rush reached Canton, China in 1848, thousands of young Chinese left their families and boarded boats to "Gum Shan," or "Gold Mountain," as California was known. Although a dangerous gamble, these Chinese had little to lose considering their province was torn by civil war, floods, droughts, and famine.
According to estimates, forty thousand immigrants arrived in San Francisco by ship in 1849. Because of the rough conditions and the transitory nature of gold speculation as a profession, women were scarce in the city. In fact, historical records indicate there was only one woman for every thirty males throughout the 1850's. In his book, Unsubmissive Women, Benson Tong discusses how this surplus of lonely men comprised a plentiful market for prostitution in the Gold Rush West.

Tong begins by first identifying the social conditions that led Chinese families to sell their daughters to bondage. According to his analysis, it was the Chinese’s patriarchal system that did not value daughters equally with sons, the country’s rapid population growth, and its shrinking land base that prompted the commodification of women. Paired with American greed and lax enforcement of immigration laws, the trafficking of Chinese women flourished in San Francisco.

Tong makes extensive use of primary sources and anecdotal records to trace the tragic circumstances of Chinese prostitutes. Claiming that they were packed like sardines into the holds of cargo ships bound for the United States, he states that the majority of prostitutes were brought to San Francisco brothels unwillingly. Despite their savage treatment and inhumane conditions, Tong chooses to focus on the success of these Chinese prostitutes. Instead of holding on to traditional stereotype that these women were helpless victims, he entertains the idea that they were unsubmissive women. He holds strong to the idea that these women escaped their wretched destiny in their homeland and instead built better lives for themselves on the frontier.

[Anonymous]

As you know, current Japanese law allows only males to reign. The lack of a male heir, however, has prompted the government to consider changing a 1947 law so that Naruhito's 4-year-old daughter, Aiko, could one day take the throne. Yesterday, though, the Imperial Household Agency announced that Princess Kiko is pregnant (and due in early fall). Consequently, this raises the possibility of a male heir taking the Chrysanthemum Throne. Equality of the sexes may not been seen for some time if Kiko is in fact pregnant with a male successor.

[Author]

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