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At the bookstore across from the British Museum yesterday I found several lovely cheap books, they were having a 50 percent off sale. I picked up a 1917 pamphlet "Ch'iu Chin: A Chinese Heroine" by Lionel Giles MA D.Litt. It was falling apart and stained but lovely. It was written in very nice old fashioned writing from a paper read before the China Society and in it's way was as biased as the Communist pamphlet.
But it was a very favorable look about her life, and interesting as it was only written ten years after her death. It held her as an ideal woman revolutionary, it ignored the seedier side, lightly passing over her bomb building home, her associations with gangsters and criminals were described as "Secret societies". Instead it focused on her education, literacy and strong belief in women's equality. It had several translations of her poems and writings which were very interesting to read. And also a note from her "most intimate friend" on her death, that even though it had been translated with thees was still moving.
One of the most interesting things about the book though was the comments at the end. Instead of all the actual revolutionary work Ch'iu did they seemed to focus mostly on her belief against foot binding, perhaps this seemed to them to be the only meaningfull way a Chinese woman would struggle for equality. Because it made it a Chinese problem and made their own gender inequality look better. The worst comment made was actually by a woman who said,
Still it was a great find, a lovely telling of a very interesting woman, even if told in a very proper way. Still hints of her true nature seemed to come through as in the description from her tomb which referred to her "delight in wine and her fondness for sword play". My Chinese children's history book also has a page about her life and I can't wait to read that and see what the differences are. Which means I should probably spend at least part of the day today studying Chinese.
But it was a very favorable look about her life, and interesting as it was only written ten years after her death. It held her as an ideal woman revolutionary, it ignored the seedier side, lightly passing over her bomb building home, her associations with gangsters and criminals were described as "Secret societies". Instead it focused on her education, literacy and strong belief in women's equality. It had several translations of her poems and writings which were very interesting to read. And also a note from her "most intimate friend" on her death, that even though it had been translated with thees was still moving.
One of the most interesting things about the book though was the comments at the end. Instead of all the actual revolutionary work Ch'iu did they seemed to focus mostly on her belief against foot binding, perhaps this seemed to them to be the only meaningfull way a Chinese woman would struggle for equality. Because it made it a Chinese problem and made their own gender inequality look better. The worst comment made was actually by a woman who said,
As the binding of women's feet prevented their getting about, it necessarily affected their intellectual capacity; therefore the narrowing of women's intelligence in China was not a recent growth, but at least a thousand years old.Which almost seems so offensive as to be laughable, they were after all binding feet, not brains! And totally disregards the abilities and achievements of the woman they had just been praising who had been a victim of the past 1000 years. It was also interesting to note that several people making comments had no idea how long foot binding had been popular in China, or any of the reasons behind it.
Still it was a great find, a lovely telling of a very interesting woman, even if told in a very proper way. Still hints of her true nature seemed to come through as in the description from her tomb which referred to her "delight in wine and her fondness for sword play". My Chinese children's history book also has a page about her life and I can't wait to read that and see what the differences are. Which means I should probably spend at least part of the day today studying Chinese.