The Three-Inch Golden Lotus (Fiction from Modern China) [Hardcover]

Chi-Tsai Feng (Author), Jicai Feng (Author), Howard Goldblatt (Author), David Wakefield (Author, Translator)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In his intriguing 1985 novel, Feng explores complex topics (such as the troubled relationship between truth and falsehood and the dangers of overzealous attempts at social reform) primarily through Chinese foot binding, the traditional practice of breaking a young girl's feet and tightly wrapping them so that they remain only three inches long. Set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the story follows Fragrant Lotus, a poor girl whose superbly bound feet bring her to the attention of Tong Ren-an. A dealer in antiques and a bound-foot fetishist, he selects his daughters-in-law by the excellence of their feet. In the household, competition for power is fierce; dominance goes to the woman judged by Tong's friends to have the best feet. Fragrant Lotus masters the "rules, skills, tricks" of caring for her most valuable asset, but when Tong dies and reform is in the air, she must learn new skills to battle the Natural Foot Society--which calls for women to unbind their feet, a painful process--and to confront her own secret relationship with this group's leader. An afterword by Wakefield, who teaches Chinese history at the University of Missouri, provides some context for the nonspecialist.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Feng creates a world that revolves around the fine art of foot binding, the ultimate being the perfect, three-inch-long "golden lotus." Young Fragrant Lotus's perfect golden lotuses take her from her impoverished orphanhood to the leading house in Tianjin in the 1890s to the 1930s. Here, idle rich men appreciate aesthetically and erotically both the most beautiful paintings and the smallest feet and vie with one another to seek out particularly fine examples of each. Alternately horrifying and humorous, fantastic and realistic, erotic and chaste, vague and detailed, this tale is thoroughly engrossing in itself. However, it also serves as an allegory for the political situation in modern China, where a few powerful people for capricious reasons control the destinies of many helpless people. Feng is one of China's most famous, versatile, and inventive modern writers but is hardly known in the West. He deserves more translations such as this able one.
- Kitty Chen Dean, Nassau Coll., Garden City, N.Y.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 239 pages
• Publisher: Univ of Hawaii Pr (March 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0824815742
• ISBN-13: 978-0824815745
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,510,691 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything I have ever wondered about foot binding ..., June 19, 2000

By 

Linda Linguvic (New York City) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Three-Inch Golden Lotus: A Novel on Foot Binding (Fiction from Modern China) (Paperback)

Subtitled "a novel of foot binding", this book was first published in China in 1986 by the enormously popular Chinese writer, Feng Jicai and translated into English in 1994.

Told as a "once upon a time" story, the writer skillfully combines myth, reason and a compelling tale while bringing the reader into the world of the "three-inch golden lotus", the tiny bound feet of Chinese women.

Everything I have ever wondered about this fascinating custom is right here in this book. From the agonies inflicted upon young girls whose childhood includes broken bones and searing pain to the high esteem these tiny feet bring them as adults, it's all here, including the group of men who erotically adore them.

Set in the early part of the 20th century, Fragrant Lotus has her feet bound by her grandmother as an act of love and tradition. Later, her small feet catch the eyes of a wealthy man who makes her the bride of his oldest son. The women of the family all compete in family "foot contests" at which "lotus loving" friends of her father-in-law spend hours debating the fine points of the history of foot binding and its many nuances.

Through the years, Fragrant Lotus becomes the head of the family and comes face to face with the changing movement to outlaw foot binding.

At only 229 pages, this book is a great read on many levels. The writer really captures the world he has set out to describe, does a excellent job of characterization and keeps the tension high with his minute descriptions of the foot contests. He also has a way of making this all into a satirical tall tale as the concepts of truth and reality are constantly explored. Deceptively simple, this story has a far deeper meaning as a metaphor for the cultural revolution as standards of beauty change.

Highly recommended.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Skilled author, enticing tale filled with wit, December 23, 2001

By 

Julie (Milwaukee, WI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Three-Inch Golden Lotus: A Novel on Foot Binding (Fiction from Modern China) (Paperback)

What a treat it is to stumble upon a master storyteller! Feng Jicai tells this story with brilliant wit and intelligence. Kudos to the translator as well. He uses historical references to fill the reader in on the tradition of foot binding, as well as weaves a creative plot. The book focuses on Fragrant Lotus, a girl who has her feet bound in the golden lotus style, and her father-in-law, who collects daughters-in-law to serve his foot fetish. He and his other "lotus loving" friends have contests and long debates in their quest for the perfect bound feet. Fragrant Lotus eventually reigns supreme in the family by virtue of her stylish feet, but Jicai uses an ironic twist at the end of the book to ask the reader an underlying political question-- why the people of China have participated in things that caused them to suffer, such foot binding and the Cultural Revolution, and why social change often comes about with cruelty. This question is all the more touching because Feng Jicai's family was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bound Feet and "Bound" Minds, June 8, 2002

By 

Anika D. Williams "gothiclibrarian" (Indianapolis, IN United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Three-Inch Golden Lotus: A Novel on Foot Binding (Fiction from Modern China) (Paperback)

In 1890, Fragrant Lotus is a young Chinese girl who loves her grandmother very much. But one day her grandmother decides it is time that she bind her granddaughter's feet, a tradition going back a thousand years, and Fragrant Lotus' life changes forever.

Though having bound feet is exceedingly painful, her grandmother does an extremely good job and through the beauty of her feet, Fragrant Lotus is able to move up through society and gain wealth, power, and prestige normally out of reach for the lower-class. However, the Communist revolution is coming.

Where once Fragrant Lotus was the epitome of female beauty, in the 20th Century, footbinding becomes a symbol of the "old" China...a China that the government wants to escape. Fragrant Lotus continues to 'stand up' for footbinding, but it is a losing battle.

In this book of fiction, the author draws comparisons between the bound feet of Chinese women and the "bound" minds of modern China after the Communist revolution. Readers of Chinese fiction, literary fiction, historical fiction, and those interested in Chinese history will devour this novel.