Foot Binding In Ancient China

Between 1644 and 1911 China was in a new dynasty called the Qing Dynasty, during the Qing Dynasty many new foreigners migrated into China, to trade their merchandise with the chinese. This had great influence on the chinese people and culture, which lead to a number of events occurring during this period. For so long China was isolated, and that was because: in the East; laid the vast Pacific ocean, South; lay mountain ranges and dense jungles, North; laid the cold yet piercing sun of the Gobi desert, and in the West; the rough and jagged mountains of the Tibetan Plateau. Having this isolation was a benefit to the chinese people, it gave them more arable land and resources, along with new materials and more population growth expansion (R darlington,

This slowly finished in the 1900’s, because it was severely painful, however there were still a very small portion of people binding their feet, to well up to 10 years after it was declared illegal. Woman in traditional China were not seen as important people. When a woman was married, the male was to make sure that she could produce a son, this was because a male was the man in power of China, and was always the man in charge of their household. As a good basic wife in traditional China, you would have had to be a woman who can; cook, look after her husband, give him sons, and be willing to eat bitterness (Woman in China, 2013).

Prior to the mid nineteenth century, four occupations applied to men, these were

Shi - aristocrats, philosophers and government administrators

Nong - farmers; considered important because they grew the food that fed the

It was very traditional and the family was considered the building block of society. A range of new foreign food crops were introduced which grew the population and exports of manufactured goods increased to European countries. Although the Chinese were still suspicious of the foreign powers, It was considered an active and growing economy. But then in the 1900’s the Chinese people were not happy with the foreign encroachment, therefore the revolt against the dynasty .They felt the emperor had changed and was now power hungry and unfair believing that they had unlimited power and the people had no say. This lead to several rebellions and war where it further showed the weakness of the Qing and there difficulty in resolving issues with the west. Eventually after 267 years of Dynasty rules China became a republic. (R Darlington, G Smithies, A Wood,