In this award-winning inquiry, Wang Ping offers a fresh perspective on the centuries-old custom of footbinding.
First examining the root of her own girlhood desire for tiny feet -- years after footbinding had been outlawed in China -- Wang then probes an astonishing range of literary references, addresses the relationship between beauty and pain, and discusses the intense female bonds that footbinding fostered in endeavoring to demystify this complex phenomenon. With a comprehensive examination of the notions of hierarchy, femininity, and fetish bound up in the tradition, Aching for Beauty places footbinding in its proper context and opens a window onto an intriguing culture.
