story guru

Researching the history of the iconic cheongsam, the Chinese traditional dress

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On this wet Sunday afternoon, I am feeling very sorry for myself – laid up with a cold – but I am distracting myself by researching the history of the the cheongsam for Bound Feet Blues, The Book.


What I am learning is that clothing has national and political significance. The cheongsam originated with Manchu rule in China when the Manchurians from the North East overthrew the Ming Dynasty in 1644. They required all men to wear their hair in a plait – known as a queue – and everyone had to wear clothing in the Manchu style: with the high collar and side buttons. Those who defied this requirement could be punished by death. It was a way of dominating the Continue reading →

Award-winning speaker and “story archaelogist” Beverley Glick to chair Bound Feet Blues Q&A

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I am thrilled that the brilliant Beverley Glick has agreed to chair the Q&A after the showcase performance of Bound Feet Blues on Mon 13 Oct at the Tristan Bates Theatre.

Beverley is an award-winning speaker and “story archaeologist” who works with individuals and businesses to find their authentic stories. She is the co-founder of the cult storytelling club The Story Party where I started my storytelling adventure that led me to create Bound Feet Blues.

 

Photo by Rita Abreu www.araphotography.co.uk

 

I got to know Beverley a couple of years ago from a public speaking course we both took part in and since then, I’ve seen her working with Continue reading →

Performance photo – the most prized, smallest foot was “the golden lotus”

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I perform Bound Feet Blues without any costumes or props – or even any shoes. My aim is to invite the audience to experience the show in the way that we have all experienced stories being told to us when we were children – that is, by co-creating the characters, events and landscapes in our imaginations.

I use my left hand to map the process of footbinding – it starts off as a normal “foot” and is steadily contorted and “broken” into the twisted shape that you see in the photo below. For comparison, I’ve also found a photo of an actual bound foot – also below.

 

 

 

This performance photo was taken at the scratch night in March at Conway Hall.

The most prized foot was called “the golden lotus” – it was Continue reading →

Storytellers Photography Project by Paul Cox

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Earlier this year, photographer Paul Cox came over to take a series of photos of me for a photography project focusing on storytellers. He was travelling around the South East of England taking pictures of storytellers in their natural habitat – or rather the places where they got their inspiration. Among the storytellers he had collected were those who specialised in folk tales, myths and legends and local places. I was his only subject whose work is around personal narrative with an East Asian twist.

It was fascinating to watch him work, using a medium format camera and film – yes, film! It was one of those old fashioned looking cameras that you look down at. He also used a light meter. It all felt very charming and old fashioned!

Here is another of the shots below… These pics show me in my garden where  Continue reading →

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

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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 →

Do you have knee high boots like Emma Peel?

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I was a great fan of The Avengers when I was a child.

I’d never seen a woman as feisty as Emma Peel before – and it opened up my mind to what a woman could be! Here she is in her famous catsuit and knee high boots…

 

Wow, or what?

But at that time, I was a tomboy and did not Continue reading →

Imagine a grown woman with baby feet

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It’s difficult for us in the modern world to imagine how small bound feet were. Whenever I say to people that some of the smallest bound feet were only 3 inches long, they register that that is small but it’s only when they see exactly how small 3 inches is, that the horror of it hits them.

In order to illustrate how tiny bound feet were for “Breaking Tradition”, my award-winning talk inspired by the stories in Bound Feet Blues, I went online to order a pair of baby shoes. I searched and searched for baby shoes that were 3 inches long but the smallest size that I could find came to just over 4 inches.

The photo above shows me holding those 4+ inch baby shoes during Continue reading →

A Chinese woman walking with Bound Feet [video]

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As part of my inquiry what it would like to walk with bound feet for my performance of Bound Feet Blues, I found this video of an elderly Chinese woman with bound feet.

I have been watching it to get a sense of her movement so that it can help me portray the walk of a woman with bound feet in my show.

The main thing that I notice is that she does not Continue reading →

Dramatic video clip showing footbinding in ancient China – from “Snow Flower and The Secret Fan”

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“Only through pain will you find beauty,” says Snow Flower’s mother as she makes her daughter walk with her feet bound.

In my research for Bound Feet Blues, I’ve been looking into what it was like for young girls to have their feet bound. I came across the movie Snow Flower and The Secret Fan – see my blog post from earlier this week “Beaches” with Bound Feet – footbinding and female friendship – which is all about footbinding.

Here is a clip showing the sequence where one of the girls has to endure footbinding:

It is painful to watch and is  a moving dramatisation of what it must have been like for little girls who had to endure this brutal process.

The one comment I would have, however, is that from my research, footbinding is a process and not just a one-off as the film suggests.

As a girl grow up, her feet keep growing so Continue reading →

Bound Feet Blues secures Arts Council Funding

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I am so excited that the Arts Council has granted funding for the development of Bound Feet Blues!

The funding enables us – my director Jessica Higgs and me – to work on the creation of the performance and explore the most meaningful way that the story can be brought to life on stage. Our work in progress will culminate in the showcase performance at the Tristan Bates Theatre in Oct – show details below.

One condition of the funding is that the Arts Council logo or an acknowledgement to the public funding they are giving us must appear wherever Bound Feet Blues is mentioned.  For me, it feels a privilege to be able to display their logo alongside this project – their support is a public recognition of my transition as Continue reading →