Product Description

"In China, a woman is nothing."

Thus begins the saga of a woman born at the turn of the century to a well-to-do, highly respected Chinese family, a woman who continually defied the expectations of her family and the traditions of her culture. Growing up in the perilous years between the fall of the last emperor and the Communist Revolution, Chang Yu-i's life is marked by a series of rebellions: her refusal as a child to let her mother bind her feet, her scandalous divorce, and her rise to Vice President of China's first women's bank in her later years.

In the alternating voices of two generations, this dual memoir brings together a deeply textured portrait of a woman's life in China with the very American story of Yu-i's brilliant and assimilated grandniece, struggling with her own search for identity and belonging. Written in pitch-perfect prose and alive with detail, Bound Feet and Western Dress is the story of independent women struggling to emerge from centuries of customs and duty.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #303480 in Books
• Published on: 1997-09-15
• Released on: 1997-09-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

From Amazon.com
When Chang Yu-I was three her mother tried to bind her feet. But the child's cries so tormented her brother that he convinced their mother to stop. This break with convention foreshadowed the extraordinary life Yu-i was to lead. After following her husband, poet Hsu Chi-Mo, a noted philanderer, to Oxford, she made history by becoming the first Chinese woman to have a western-style divorce at age 22. Determined to make her own way, she moved to America and served in a series of prestigious positions, including president of a bank. Written by Yu-i's great niece, Pang-Mei Natasha Chang, Bound Feet and Western Dress chronicles the life of this exceptional woman.

From Publishers Weekly
In this exquisite memoir, Chang Yu-i, the daughter of a distinguished Chinese family, recreates her life for her American-born grandniece, Pang-Mei, a Harvard student who is conflicted about her identity. Born in 1900, during the Boxer Rebellion, Yu-i was a victim of the tension between Western ideas and Chinese tradition. Her parents were sufficiently progressive not to insist on binding her feet but nevertheless believed that a woman was nothing except the obedient servant of her husband, in-laws and children. Dutifully, Yu-i accepted the marriage they arranged for her to Hsu Chi-mo, a poet so entranced by Western culture that, on their wedding night, he declared his intention to have the first Western-style divorce in China. Although this did not happen at once, after Yu-i had born him a son and submitted to several years of his cruelty, he deserted her while she was again pregnant. Refusing his demand that she abort the child, but ashamed to face disgrace at home, and rejecting thoughts of suicide, she joined her brother in Germany, where she educated herself, becoming a teacher and a successful businesswoman?eventually the first woman vice-president of the Shanghai Women's Bank. With details of a life that straddled pre-Communist and Communist China, this is an enthralling tale of a woman who achieved independence despite great odds. Photos.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
A nonfiction Joy Luck Club from a Chinese American lawyer.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

An Intriguring Read
In the late 1990s, the Chinese-American Pang-Mei Natasha Chang wrote her first book entitled "Bound Feet and Western Dress," which accounts the life story of the author's great aunt, Chang Yu-i. The author was the first generation of the Chang family to be born in the United States. She wrote the book about her own search of Chinese identity in the American world and the tale of her great aunt's hard and interesting life.

The book is broken into fifteen chapters, which describe the early life of Yu-i, the history of the Chang family, the life of the author herself, the lifestyle of women in China, the marriage and the divorce of Yu-i and Hsu Chih-mo, and the last years of Yu-i's life.

One can understand the influence of modernity on the Chinese society and the Chinese women as one look at the author's great aunt as a traditional girl and her strength as a woman, why Chih-mo marry her, and the significance of their divorce in this book. "Bound Feet and Western Dress" is intriguing work and an enjoyable read.

A good book, because it is a true story.
I enjoyed the auuthor's simple writing style. The story is about a woman who decides whether or not to make her own life, or allow it to be decided for her. The best thing about this book, is that it is a true story. The book was fast reading, and very inspirational. I would reccommend it.

Why Am I Famous
This woman Natasha is suffering from the WAIF (why am I famous) syndrome. She has accomplshed nothing beside a stupid degree from Harvard (her family is loaded obviously. Her grandfather and father, chinese, went to Japan after the war. Why? Where did their money come from? Any patriotic chinese would not go to Japan after the war. They must be special.) So, she dragged up this great aunt who had been married to a poet for a few years. This great aunt has done nothing except what most good chinese women of her generation would do----swallowed bitterness, did her duty etc--- I was a child in Hong Kong when I heard about the letter Yu-I's son wrote about her proposed re-marriage. Everybody said her son was brilliant and a loving son. Yu-I herself never complained. I left Hong Kong after she emigrated so I know.

This Natasha went on endlessly about her 'suffering.' Poor thing, if chinese waiter speak to her in chinese , she would have a fit. Likewise the other way round. She did not have the grace to talk properly to a chinese ex-change student thousands of miles away from home (chinese people are not a novelty to her, she said.) She complained about chinese people with bad teeth and bad English, unlikely her posh family. Well, from what I can see from the photo, her whole family is preety ugly. What is more, they are self-centred, full of self-importance, selfish, and stupid. What with her father talking about producing 'pure chinese children.' Of course, Natasha herself will never marry a chinese. This is the real her. Trying to glamorize herself by some digging of past 'romance and glory.' She does not give two figs about the suffering of the chinese people in China like the aids village or millions of child workers working in desperate condition. She is so stupid that she mentioned Yu-I's war profiteering (buying dye used for army uniform and holding it back until the price had increased a hundred fold.) I am so sick I can puke.