Customer Reviews

Bound Feet & Western Dress: A Memoir

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4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This novel was given to me by my younger brother for Christmas 1997. He said he thought it might be interesting for me--I think it is the best gift he's ever given me. I am the eldest daughter of a Chinese family; my own mother came from China and I and my brothers were born here in America. The biography "Bound Feet and Western Dress" serves to further enrich all the stories and experiences that my mother has been telling me about our own family history. For me, the book serves as just one piece to the complex puzzle of what happened to some of the families in China during the first half of the Twentieth Century. The novel's poignant story lets me know that I'm not alone in my mother's methods to raise me as a "good Chinese daughter" -- with her strange proverbs, her continuing treatment of me as second to the males in our family, and her insistence on a daughter's family duty. This book illustrates time after time how the main character, Chang Yu-I, deals with many unforeseen circumstances with strength and dignity -- surviving a short-lived marriage, changing cultural traditions, raising children on one's own, living in a foreign land, dealing with wartime, working hard, fulfilling family duty, and doing what is needs to be done. In this story, I do not believe the main character intends to push through major changes but, rather, she does not cower at what life brings to her. This gives the reader extra courage to know that you can deal with whatever the future holds for you. It made me laugh and cry. I especially love this book because of all the translated Chinese sayings. I saved the Christmas ribbons (which wrapped this gift from my brother) and I use the strips for bookmarks; the book sits cheerfully on my shelf bookmarked in numerous places with bright red and green to bring me straight to the poetic and beautiful sayings. The author was introduced to me last night at a dinner event as "Pang Mei" (prounounced like "Bang Mei") -- I was delighted at her beauty, animated enthusiasm and her down-to-earth approachability. I highly recommend "Bound Feet and Western Dress" for young and old alike. Be prepared for the jumping of the timeframes and the two narrative voices--the story will, nonetheless, enrich your life and hopefully it will help you understand a bit more about some of the Chinese women you may meet. The story is quick to read and would be a good springboard for the discussion of duty and honour, and the ability to change, be responsible, and succeed regardless of gender and class.

Change can be a frightening affair, and looking back at change can be something that seems almost 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 is one of 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 identify one person 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 first I simply thought it was a story about a granddaughter wanting to explore her grandmother's life because she was the first 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 almost 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 being three and 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 almost 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't disclose without messing up part of the tale, but 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 almost 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 but 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 recommend, it has my highest recommendation and the most 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.

From what I've read about Chinese culture, the ties that bind a family together are one of its strongest and most enforced traditions. "Bound Feet and Western Dress" is an interesting memoir for the fact that it does not read like a memoir at all. It is the story of a great-aunt told to her great-niece, who mixes in her own observations about her aunt's life and her experience as a Chinese-American among her narrative.

"Bound Feet and Western Dress" tells the story of the author's great-aunt, Chang Yu-i. Born in 1900, Yu-i was the first woman in her family to refuse to have her feet bound. Despite being modern in this aspect, she is stunted and traditional in her upbringing, her education, and the way she acts in her first marriage. She is famous for having perhaps the first "modern" divorce in China and is determined to make it on her own from that point on. No one in her family truly knows her story until her great-niece asks her to tell it.

What passes between the two of them may not be a ground-breaking, fascinating story but is rather a quiet reflection on growing up in a changing time. Yu-i struggles through a great majority of her life to be both modern and traditional, to do what is 'right and expected' and to do what she wanted to do. She is an inspiration to her great-niece, a first generation Chinese-American who feels at home with neither nationality. The intersections of the author's remembrances of past encumbrances fit nicely with Yu-i's struggle to bridge the past with the new. "Bound Feet and Western Dress" offers a poignant look at the role that women have played in China and how they are defining themselves today.

This is an incredibly powerful story of one woman's struggle in China. Yu-i, the daughter of a distinguished family, was born at the turn of the century in China. "In China, a woman is nothing." So the story begins. Growing up between the fall of the last emperor and the Communist Revolution, Yu-i, like all other Chinese girls, was expected to have her feet bound. This was the beginning of Yu-i's life of rebellion. At the age of three, her strong protests cut the process of binding short. Later after her husband abandoned her, Yu-i continued her education while raising her son alone. She eventually became president of China's first women's bank. She remained loyal to her ex-husband's family as she continued to care for his parents, his second wife and her lover after her ex-husband passed away. Yu-i was certainly a woman ahead of her time. Pang-Mei Natasha Chang's book, BOUND FEET & WESTERN DRESS explores the difficulty she has accepting her great-aunt's adherence to traditions that bound her to years of suffering in silence. After spending lots of time with Yu-i, Pang-Mei learned to appreciate what Yu-i had survived and accomplished. Pang-Mei saw in Yu-i aspects of her own personal struggles of the constant tug between familial duty and individual desire. This is truly a remarkable story of two women born in different eras, faced with many of the same concerns. I highly recommend this book

The popularity of Asian stories has increased over the last few years and Bound Feet and Western Dress, A Memoir is certainly one of the most endearing. The story of Chang U-i, a woman born in a traditional China who was trained in traditional Chinese thought and responsibility, but whose life spanned both the traditional and the modern--western--world, highlights the difficulty of bridging the very distant gap between ancient Chinese custom and the vast changes thrust upon it by the emerging western world. Married off at the early age of fifteen to a man she had never seen--as was the custom--U-i was left with her in-laws while her husband continued his education in the West. Even though she bore his family two sons, she scarcely knew her husband and was shocked when he demanded a divorce, as he put it, "the first couple in China to get a divorce." It is also the story of Pang-Mei, U-i's grand niece, who grew up in the United States and became interested in her great aunt's story. The juxtaposition of their lives and the corresponding parallels are not only interesting but also revealing of just how far U-i came from a young girl in China through her interesting and challenging life to the end where she was loved and cherished by many.

I read the Chinese version of this book and I strongly recommend it. I was really moved by this book (based on the Chinese version, translated by Tan Jiayu, published in Taiwan, ISBN 957-9553-66-3). I could feel the struggling of all its characters. The struggling between cultures, humanity and changes. I could feel the helpless and weakness of mankind. I haven't had a chance to read the English version but I believe it won't be too bad. Still, I recommend the Chinese version (if you can read Chinese). I think it is well-translated and what's more, you can read the beautiful and touching original letters and poems written by Hsü Chih-mo and the others. You can feel the deep sadness, and, confusion.

I could not put this book down and read it in a few hours. This is by far the best book I have read on traditional Chinese values and society in the early twentieth century from a feminine perspective. As a first-generation Chinese American, who grew up in Shanghai and came to America at the age of eight and attended an Ivy League school, I identified not only with the author's experience of growing up in America and the expectations placed on her, but also with the values with which her great-aunt (the protagonist of the book) was brought up. Through the voice of her great-aunt, Yu-I, Natasha Chang brings to light the complex and intricate nature of what it means to be Chinese, and moreover a Chinese woman -an obedient daughter, a western wife, a learned scholar, a dreamy artist, and dutiful mother - that is applicable even to Chinese-Americans in the twenty-first century. In Natasha and in Yu-I, I see myself, my mother, and my grandmother. The book is thoughtfully crafted and the sentiments beautifully expressed. At moments, I wanted to weep because the book is utterly nostalgic of the Old China and poignant relationships that are no more. Yet through Natasha's own narrative, one realizes that though Old China is no more, the pride and beauty of the Chinese heritage still courses through Chinese-Americans today. I really love how the author tries to unravel inexplicable Chinese concepts such as zhiqi (dignity), ren, li, filial piety, etc. An extra bonus, this book also acts as a brief survey of early twentieth-century Chinese history.

The English title of "Bound Feet and Western Dress" suggests the struggles of westernization versus traditionalism faced by the two Chang women, but the Chinese title, "Yu-I and Chih-Mo", implies a more embedded reading. At the heart of the narrative is a Chinese love story. I did not get this point until the every end.

This is a gem. I highly recommend it.

"Bound Feet & Western Dress" is about the life of a Chinese woman, Yu-i, and how she struggles to follow Western culture and modernise herself while still adhering to the Chinese custom of respect and submission. Yu-i was born "in changing times" in China, so she made it her personal goal to be the first female in her family to break the cultural norms like foot-binding and women not being allowed to have an education. It covers many events, from Chinese foot binding and weddings, to the first divorce of China and how Chinese women are expected to wholly defer to their family's and husband's expectations. It is wonderful how the author blended historic and modern events into one story, and showed how difficult it is for one person to make such a leap between the times. Many of the events and issues in the book paved the way for today's modern society. This book would definately appeal to readers interested in history or different cultures.

I learned about what it was like to be born a woman in China at the turn of the twentieth century when I was at high school. However, this book provides much in-depth information about the old Chinese customs-especially the role of Chinese women at the turn of the century. This book is filled with conflicts of traditional Chinese values vs. Western values. I admire Chang Yuyi's courage to tell her own story to her great-niece, Pang-Mei who took the time to write the story. Hsu Chi-Mo (Yu-i's ex-husband) was one of my famous writers since I was at junior high school. I read all poems, collected works, letters, essays, and diaries, etc. I was so fond of his romance with Luk Siu-Man. I learned that he had a "trouble marriage," however, it is the first time I am able to read about the other side of his life through his ex-wife, Chang Yu-i. Through this book Yu-I unveiled the "dark-side" of a famous scholar to the whole world. It is a great book. I enjoyed it very much.

this book is a wonderful true story of Yu-i, the first woman in China to get a Western style divorce. Yu-i's whole life has been set on tradition, from her three days with bound feet that caused her such agony that her brother ordered their mother to stop, to her marriage at fifteen to a scholar and poet, Hsu Chi Mu (I don't have the book with me so I'm not sure if that is how you spell it) to her relief as she pleases her parents in law with her delivery of a son at eighteen as she attempts to be a "filial child". She is immediatly catapulted out of her life in traditional China when she joins her husband in Oxford, England, and he divorces her, leaving her to move to Berlin and having their second son, peter, who died of an intestine complication at three. This book is wonderful, and I felt increasingly sorry for Yu-i as the book progressed. She was, as her amyah said, "neither 3 nor 4," after she was released from having bound feet, meaning she wouldnever be truly traditional Chinese, nor a true Westerner.