What do bound feet have in common with a lesbian thriller?

September 1, 2014October 10, 2015 / Yang-May Ooi / Leave a comment

My solo show Bound Feet Blues asks the question: how do we as individuals, and as women, live authentic lives true to ourselves within a dominant culture that seeks to control our bodies and our spirit? Foot binding in ancient China broke a woman’s body physically – but also broke her spirit over the course of the many years it would take to create the perfect tiny foot. What dominant cultural traditions in our modern era play a similar controlling role in who and what we can be?

I’ve just received the proofs of the e-book of my second novel, Mindgame, the first and only lesbian Malaysian thriller. It is soon to be re-issued by Monsoon Books and I am now reading through the proofs – all 450+ pages of the book – to check it before publication. On re-reading the book, I see that this same theme that I explore in Bound Feet Blues also Continue reading →

Bound Feet Blues: Why did Chinese women have bound feet?

April 18, 2014August 11, 2014 / Yang-May Ooi / Leave a comment

I’ve been researching the history of bound feet for my solo performance piece Bound Feet Blues.

According to Wikipedia

Bound feet became a mark of beauty and was also a prerequisite for finding a husband. It also became an avenue for poorer women to marry into money; for example, in Guangdong in the late 19th century, it was customary to bind the feet of the eldest daughter of a lower-class family who was intended to be brought up as a lady. Her younger sisters would grow up to be bond-servants or domestic slaves and, when old enough, either the concubines of rich men or the wives of laboring men, able to work in the fields alongside them. In contrast, the tiny, narrow feet of the “ladies” were considered beautiful and made a woman’s movements more feminine and dainty, and it was assumed these eldest daughters would never need to work. Women, their families, and their husbands took great pride in tiny feet, with the ideal length, called the “Golden Lotus”, being about 7 cm (3 inches) long.^[7] This pride was reflected in the elegantly embroidered silk slippers and wrappings girls and women wore to cover their feet. Walking on bound feet necessitated bending the knees slightly and swaying to maintain proper movement and balance, a dainty walk that was also considered erotic to men.^[8]

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_binding

It’s the small things that make up some of the best stories [Bound Feet Blues]

April 15, 2014April 14, 2014 / Yang-May Ooi / Leave a comment

We often think that stories need to be grand and on an epic scale to be compelling. We think that great stories involve heroic, larger than life characters. And so, we come to believe that our own stories mean very little because they happen on such a small scale compared to people who have been through war, disaster, terrible illnesses and events that seem “Worthy” of recognitiion.

I am of course not disrespecting the trauma and suffering of people who have been through those harsh and terrible experiences. Those stories are meaningful and need to be told.