#kang youwei

[confusedbyinterface]

I don't know how much this reflects the actual Hundred Days, but in the historical drama Towards The Republic, Kang Youwei's first recommendation to the Guangxu Emperor was adopting western dress and customs. He references the Meiji Reforms as justification for it.

@kaziusklasterzoroaster said:

what is meiji disease?

"Meiji disease" is my (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) pet term for the seemingly common phenomenon in which people conflate industrialization and economic technicalization with arbitrary forms of cultural Westernization (or, more generally, arbitrary forms of assimilation to any dominant culture).

It is named after the Meiji reformers, who lead Japan to an era of unprecedented prosperity and global prominence by industrializing and technicalizing the economy. The reformers felt that Japan's previous government, the Bakufu, had kept Japan isolated and therefore allowed it to fall behind its European competitors; only by learning the secrets to the Westerners' success and imitating them could Japan catch up. This lead, of course, to the aforementioned rapid industrialization, a feat genuinely unprecedented in human history. It also lead to the standardization of Shinto into a new and more oppressive state religion, to the banning of sodomy, the sex-segregation of onsen, and a general crackdown on sexual freedom, to the introduction of new and violent assimilationist policies towards the Ainu and Ryūkyūans, who previously had been allowed to live somewhat autonomously as trade partners and vassals. Or, to consider the less explicitly negative and the more neutral-but-unnecessary: the introduction of Western dress, including Western military regalia for the emperor and his officers and a push among ordinary people to forgo kimono for suit and tie, the adoption of Western dance styles among the upper classes, the replacement of the katana with Western style swords. There was even a proposal—which fortunately never made it off the ground—to replace Japanese with English as Japan's official language.

This attitude of Westernization in all spheres eventually contributed to the nationalist backlash of the Shōwa period, which sought to reclaim some sense of Japanese cultural particularity—while, of course, holding onto many of the most oppressive policies of the Meiji government, including State Shinto.

One way or another, it seems almost certain to me that whether men wear kimono or suit and tie has precious little to do with a nation's ability to maintain an industrial economy. Whether sodomy is legal or whether men and women are allowed to bathe together has precious little to do with the ability to feed people or provide them with antibiotics or electricity or any of the other comforts of modern life. One need not crack down on variant Shinto festivals, or decorate with gargoyles instead of komainu, in order to make progress in chemistry and mathematics. And certainly, as Japan's success in the modern age has well demonstrated, you do not have to speak English.

But the idea that modernization means arbitrary Westernization remains common around the world, both inside and outside the West. It is, for some reason, a very persuasive idea. There is a feeling that in order to access the benefits of the industrial world, one must give up one's lifestyle completely and assimilate to wholly arbitrary facets of Western life. Surely, when it comes to minority cultures within the West itself, it is mainstream Western society pushing this idea. It seems that it is also often internalized to a great degree.

I think that this mindset has done irreparable damage to the cultural heritage of mankind and to the variety of human experience, in addition to frequently being a core piece of rhetoric in the advancement of oppressive—and, in particular in cases like the banning of sodomy in Meiji Japan or under the Tanzimat reforms in the Ottoman Empire, pointlessly oppressive—policies. My frustration is first and foremost with Westerners who export this idea, and second of all with elites in other parts of the world who push meaningless and arbitrary Western practices on those they have power over in order to "modernize".

The success of the Meiji restoration was rare and astonishing. The only comparable case of successful rapid industrialization as far as I know was that advanced by Stalin in the Soviet Union, which was achieved with significantly more death and destruction. I think the Meiji restoration should be studied generally for its historical lessons—some things to repeat and others not to.

[newhistorybooks]

"Long overdue, this deeply researched book embeds Kang Youwei and Sun Yatsen's North American journeys in the dynamic networks of overseas Chinese who mobilized amid the fall of the Qing dynasty. Using an authoritative array of Chinese-language records, Zhongping Chen adeptly corrects longstanding myths and recovers into historical visibility the patriotic activists who campaigned to save their homeland."

[arosthorn]

Recently finished doing some readings on Tan Sitong, a late Qing scholar-reformer and intellectual that's generally best known for his association with notable figures like Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, and participating in the 1898 Hundred Days Reform that lead to his execution. Far too often in popular historical narratives, Tan's activities and intellectual beliefs get subsumed by an exaggerated image of his relationship with Kang and Liang, which take that as a basis from which to discuss and characterise Tan's life and beliefs.

Piercing through the veil of popular narratives and myths that surround him, you get a portrait of an figure immersed in a diverse intellectual milleu ranging from Hunan's local intellectual tradition of statecraft, to 'Western learning', to Mozi, to Buddhism and a myriad of other intellectual branches present in the late Qing. The development of his intellectual worldview, from an essentially static, sino-centric world in his 1889 'Zhiyan' essay to the more cultural relativist, comparative perspective in his first major work 'Shiju yinglu bishi', to conceiving of a universal culture in his 'Renxue', was also interesting to read about. In addition, it was curious to observe how significant events like the early death of his mother, sister and brother within five days of each other when Tan was 12 years old cast a long shadow and influence on his later views and intellectual output.

A striking figure all-round, far more interesting than the one-dimensional image of the 'disciple of Kang Youwei' or 'martyr for the Qing' that he regularly gets portrayed as.

[gonzalo-obes]

IMAGENES Y DATOS INTERESANTES DEL DIA 11 DE JUNIO DE 2024

Día Internacional del Juego, Día Mundial del Cáncer de Próstata, Día Internacional del Síndrome KBG, Semana Internacional de la Salud Masculina, Año Internacional de los Camélidos.

Santa Alicia y San Bernabé.

Tal día como hoy en el año 2009

27 años después de haberlo hecho por el SIDA, la Organización Mundial de la Salud eleva al máximo el nivel de alerta y declara la pandemia por el virus de la gripe A (H1N1), tras comprobar que existe una transmisión estable del virus en algunos países fuera de la primera región afectada, Norteamérica. El 10 de agosto de 2010 la OMS anunciará el fin de la pandemia que habrá tenido una mortalidad baja en comparación con la gran alarma social que ha provocado además de enormes beneficios para las industrias farmaceúticas. (Hace 15 años)

1955

En Francia, en el circuito de la Sarthe, cercano a la población de Le Mans, durante la celebración de la mítica carrera automovilística de las "24 horas de Le Mans", tiene lugar un terrorífico accidente al salir volando el Mercedes de Levegh, contra las tribunas repletas de público, tras haber chocado previamente contra el Austin de Macklin, a más de 230 kilómetros por hora, ocasionando un trágico balance de 83 víctimas mortales, incluido el propio piloto. También deja cientos de heridos. (Hace 69 años)

1910

En España, el Gobierno de José Canalejas autoriza el culto público de cualquier religión, causando un gran malestar en el clero que hasta ahora obstentaba el monopolio. (Hace 114 años)

1902

En Serbia, el ejército, da un golpe de estado y asesina a los reyes Alejandro I y su esposa. El príncipe proruso Karajorgevic es proclamado monarca. (Hace 122 años)

1898

Después de la supuesta retirada de la emperatriz Dowager Cixi, que ha estado tutelando su reinado, el emperador chino de la dinastía Qing, Guangxu, emite su primer decreto reformista iniciando los llamados "Cien Días de la Reforma", un intento imperial de renovación del Estado chino y el sistema social y legislativo, con la ayuda de los más progresistas, como Qing Kang Youwei y Liang Qichao. (Hace 126 años)

1742

La emperatriz María Teresa de Austria decide hacer la paz con el rey Federico II de Prusia, al cederle la casi totalidad de Silesia mediante el Tratado de Breslau, marcando así el final de la Primera Guerra de Silesia. (Hace 282 años)

1580

El español Juan de Garay, al mando de algunos oficiales y sesenta voluntarios, funda la nueva ciudad de la Santísima Trinidad, la actual Buenos Aires (Argentina), tras el fracaso de la primera por el adelantado Pedro de Mendoza que lo hizo en febrero de 1536, pero que tras el asedio a que fue sometida por los indígenas querandíes decidieron su abandono en 1541. Juan de Garay, tal y como había prometido, reparte tierras y ganado a quienes le acompañan en esta expedición y para él mismo. (Hace 444 años)

1509

Enrique VIII, rey de Inglaterra, se casa con Catalina de Aragón, hija de los Reyes Católicos y primera de sus seis mujeres, con la que tendrá cinco hijos, aunque sólo uno será varón y fallecerá dos meses después de haber nacido. Enrique VIII terminará repudiando a Catalina y divorciándose de ella tras 20 años de matrimonio. Catalina morirá en Inglaterra en 1536. (Hace 515 años)

1496

A bordo de la carabela La Niña y tras una dura travesía, Cristóbal Colón llega al puerto de Cádiz (España), de regreso de su segundo viaje a América cuyo objetivo ha sido explorar, colonizar y predicar la fe católica en los territorios descubiertos durante el primer viaje. Había partido el 25 de septiembre de 1493. Será recibido por los Reyes Católicos en la Casa del Cordón en Burgos. (Hace 528 años)

[adamjiang]

Answers to GOA application questions (earlier version)

Please share a link to or a detailed description of a lesson, unit, or learning experience you designed where students practiced one or more of the above competencies. We are particularly interested in experiences that privilege student agency.  

I like using Socratic seminar to discuss intriguing and cutting-edge scholarly questions in humanities. At the start of this G9 unit, after getting students hooked on The Needham Puzzle of why and how China had ceded its leadership in Science and Technology to Western countries, I introduced a sub-puzzle in the context of feudal Japan: Why did the Meji Restoration succeed in Japan and the Hundred Days of Reform fail in China?

In the beginning of the semester, a “classroom constitution” that focused on collaboration norms was co-written by all students following a dumbed-down version of one of the Adaptive School protocols. Whenever there was a collaborative issue between students, we would reference the “classroom constitution” which was posted on the wall.

Altogether we watched a video explaining the milestones of the historical event and students were assigned some jigsaw reading materials to familiarize themselves with the context.

To better scaffold the abstract puzzle, several focus areas were given to students: decision-making process in different regimes, cultural similarities vs. differences, environmental determinism (based on geographical features), types of civilization (ocean vs. agricultural), key historical figures (Empress Dowager Cixi, Kang Youwei & Liang Qichao, Guangxu Emperor, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, Sakamoto Ryoma, Saigo Takamori, etc.)

Based on their interests, students chose their focus area under the first-come-first-serve protocol and form research pairs.

With a pre-designed question list and format, students started the research process and continued to do so on the weekend via the collaborative document on Office 365. Students had to use planner tools like Trello to track their research process.

With different roles chosen by students in advance (I modified the roles to questioner, idea proposer, supporter, opposer, paraphraser, recorder/time keeper), they conducted the first Socratic seminar.

In-class and off-class research continued based on the confusion and questions generated in the first seminar.

In the second seminar students were also allowed to use various evidence to corroborate their points, which included but was not limited to visuals and graphs, pictures of artifacts, etc. with a limit of time in order to wrap up the discussion in time.

After the second seminar, students were asked to make a reflective piece based on their choice: podcast, video, written, etc., which formed their portfolio for the later student-led conference too.

If given extra time for the module, I would:

introduce a series of sub-puzzles: for example, why did the tiny Satsuma Domain in southwestern Japan play such a dominant role in Bakumatsu Period?

ask students to write a longer research paper based on different sub-puzzles.

have an exhibition to together tackle the Needham Puzzle and invite real historians as panelists to give students more feedback.

Publish a book titled How G9 Students Tackle The Needham Puzzle and authored by all students in this class!

2. Please describe how and when you give students feedback as a part of the unit/lesson linked above. How do you follow up to see that students have acted on your feedback? Please link to an example of feedback you have given on actual student work.   *

Regarding the aforementioned research assignment on comparison of reforms between China and Japan, after the Socratic seminar, I also held individual conferences with each student based on their contribution during the seminar as well as the research memo. During the 1-on-1 conferences, I focused on competencies and asked students to evaluate their targeted competencies first before I gave my opinion. Even during the time when I gave opinion, I used a series of questions to help students verbalize the direction I was hoping for. It is even better the direction turned out to be slightly or completely different from what I visualized depending on student’s input and perspectives, which is the embodiment of emergent learning and collaborative design. It was a Socratic way of offering feedback after Socratic seminar and aligns with the idea of assessment FOR learning in contrast with assessment OF learning.

Currently I’m following the MYP framework in assessment, which is based on criteria. In addition to what I uploaded on ManageBac, I also engaged students in self-assessment and peer assessment after showing them the feedback protocol.

Without the IB constraint, there are a few things I would like to try:

First, I would love to use a collaborative design model for rubrics, which can take fair amount of time but is worthwhile due to the metacognitive gain.

Second, I try to gear towards a more descriptive direction from a more prescriptive direction in terms of giving feedback. If the prescriptive way refers to rigidly following every bullet point of the rubrics, we sometimes find that checking all boxes does not necessarily equal to desired outcome for certain competencies. For example, an argumentative work that piles up all the jargons and follows PEEL structure sometimes doesn’t make sense wholistically. Although it can be argued that this is due to the lack of certain aspect in the rubrics, I still try to start from the student’s work itself, or student as a human being, and link back to the rubrics and competencies, rather than the opposite, especially in the field of humanities. This can be seen as a part vs. whole calibration too.

3. What are you finding most challenging about your current work/position? What are strategies you're using to adapt to/overcome that challenge?   *

My current position as head of middle school involves more managerial work than teaching. For the Individual and Society course that I teach, the most challenging thing is that teachers teaching the same course do not have time to meet with each other, especially the Chinese civilization teachers and world civilization teachers. To overcome this challenge, we need to refine the scheduling and staffing model. With my principal position, I had the privilege of initiating a more “focused” teaching assignment model between middle school and high school but it was not easy given my new role and organizational inertia. After bringing key people on board and communication process with a bigger group of faculty, we aim to have most faculty focus on one division for next school year. Therefore we are able to decrease the number of teacher preps and there will be less number of teachers on the co-planning team so they can meet together for next school year.

4. What do you ask for in a collaborator? What do you offer as a collaborator?   *

Clarity can be a rare quality and is the first thing I ask for in a collaborator.

As a collaborator, I offer solution-oriented approaches that maximize collective efficacy.

5. If we asked your students to describe you as a teacher, what would they say?   *

Knowledgeable and connective: he has “random” knowledge about so many things, especially in the general humanities area, that he can connect with in any module we are learning.

Provocative and challenging: he always said, unlike math and science there is no one correct answer in humanities and he always asks students to disagree with him. He pushes students to disagree with him with all sorts of questioning techniques.

Empowering: he believes in our potentials and continues to push us.

Humble: there are times when he admitted he didn’t know certain things but he would love to create a co-learning experience with the students.

[confusedbyinterface]

Seeing a scene which must exist in every other Chinese historical drama but is never depicted: Kang Youwei is at the ruins of the summer palace rehearsing the speech he'll give to the Emperor and getting his students to make objections like the conservative officials so he can prepare appropriate responses.

[uwmspeccoll]

                                    Figure 1: Kang Youwei’s Portrait                          

Graduate Research: Chinese Scroll and Fan Work

Hi everyone! Recently, I began working in UWM Special Collection as a graduate Art History researcher to investigate some the Chinese art scrolls and fans from the collection. Most of these works came from a donation by Professor Zhou Cezong (1916-2007) and his wife Nancy Wu.  

Today I want to introduce you to one important artwork in the collection, a couplet on two scrolls (Figures 2 and 3) that was created by Kang Youwei (1858-1927, see Figure 1) during 1920s. The couplet suggests Kang’s ideology of being a scholar. Flowers and bamboo are used as metaphors for the ideal of the scholar: “Flowers and bamboos symbolize the spirit of elegance and being aloof from worldly pursuits. A status with virtue of grace and being indifferent to fame is where my heart goes to.”

As the leader of the Hundred Days’ Reform (June 11 to September 22, 1898), Kang was one of the most audacious and provocative political figures in Chinese modern history. Before the reform, Guang Xu Emperor asked several high officials negotiating with him. One of them questioned Kang’s plans by saying “how can we change everything overnight?” He replied, with great resolution and courage, “by killing several high officials, then the reforms will run out smoothly!”

Kang was a fervent patriot and constitutionalist. For the reform, he designed a very systematic plan to abolish the old systems and construct a system of modern governance. However, his radicalization ultimately led the reform to  failure---the emperor was imprisoned, the leading figures were executed, and Kang was sent into long exile abroad.

In Kang’s later life, he did not continue the momentum of his reforming ambition; instead, he became a reactionary of resistance to forthcoming revolutions. When he heard about the outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution in 1911, he was “distraught,” and cursed it to be abortive. In 1917, he even joined with Zhang Xun (1854-1923) to restore the abdicated emperor. In his opinion, “the rise of the democracy would only increase the violence from the mob;” and only by “returning to the Confucian doctrines (i.e., the symbol of feudal governance)” could the country be saved from damnation.

Our UWM couplet (see Figure 2 and 3) was mounted around 80 years ago and is still in perfect condition. The brush strokes are cursive and succinct, expressing great determination and spontaneity, as if indicating Kang’s ambition to wipe out the old stereotypical practice. The second stamp in second couplet (Figure 4), which is printed upside down and reads “Spending 16 years in exile, travelling all over the world 3 times, visiting 4 continents, passing through 31 countries and walking 600 thousand miles,” is one of the most interesting stamps in the modern Chinese art history, which can also be seen as the summation of author’s controversial and legendary life.

               Figure 2: UWM Special Collection (cs ooo114a), the first couplet

        Figure 3: UWM Special Collection (cs ooo114b), the second couplet  

              Figure 4: second seal in the second couplet (cs ooo114b)

-- Jingwei Zeng, Special Collections graduate researcher

[diamondnokouzai]

chinese philosopher 1: idk i think the ideals of christianity (treat your neighbors as you would yourself) can also apply to buddhism or daoism :)

chinese philosopher 2: once we reach the age of great prosperity christianity will actually vanish from the earth but thanks for playing

[milkboydotnet]

Letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend is still correct. Truth emerges out of struggle with error. Beauty emerges out of comparison with and struggle with ugliness. Good deeds and good people emerge out of comparison with and struggle with evil deeds and evil people. Fragrant flowers emerge from the comparison with and struggle with poisonous weeds. Materialism emerges out of the comparison with and struggle with idealism. Many people hate Chiang Kai-shek, but they don’t know what a bastard Chiang Kai-shek really is. Therefore we should publish the collected works of Chiang Kai-shek. We should also publish the collected works of Sun Yat-sen and the collected works of Kang Youwei. To prohibit people from coming into contact with ugliness, error and fallacies, idealism, and metaphysics is a very dangerous policy. It would cause people’s thinking to deteriorate and ossify; it would make them one-sided and incapable of facing the world or meeting the challenge of a rival show. We Communists know too little about the opposite side, so we are comparatively monotonous and can hardly produce any persuasive statements. Neither Marx, nor Engels, nor Lenin was like this. They all strenuously studied contemporary and historical matters and also instructed other people to study in a like manner. Stalin was a bit inferior. He rejected German philosophy (Kant and Feuerbach), and because Germany was defeated in war he also rejected German military teachings. Germany’s classical philosophy is the forefather of Marxism. Stalin was in reality metaphysical [in his ideas], and he did not recognize the unity of opposites. In the Dictionary of Philosophy they employed a metaphysical way of putting things. [In it,] war does not turn into peace, nor does peace turn into war; the two things are separate and unrelated; they are not mutually transmutable; they only struggle [with each other], but there is no unity. Lenin said that war was an extension of politics and a special means, and that peace was a result of war. [He said that] politics was struggle during the time of peace, and that it is during times of war that peace is fomented. Stalin misled many people. These people had a lot of metaphysics in their minds and became rigid in their thinking, thus they committed political mistakes. When others disagreed [with them] occasionally, they were ostracized. [When one was deemed a] counterrevolutionary, the only [fate one could meet was that of] death by execution, and whoever disagreed with the Soviet Union was called anti-Soviet. But in real life Stalin could not do all things in this way. Stalin didn’t execute or jail everybody. In 1936 and 1937 he killed many people. In 1938 he killed fewer, and in 1939 he killed even fewer. It is not possible to execute everyone who disagrees. We, for one, had disagreements with Stalin. We wanted to sign a Sino-Soviet Treaty, but he didn’t want to sign; we wanted the Chinese-Changchun Railway back, but he didn’t want to give it up. Even so, it is still possible to snatch the meat out of a tiger’s mouth.

Speech at the Conference of Provincial, Municipal, and Autonomous Region Party Secretaries (Jan. 27, 1957)

[neo-confucianism]

Civil Service Exam

Another important change during the Tang-Song transition was the civil service exam. The civil service exam, or jinshi, though introduced during the Tang dynasty didn’t gain traction until the Song period. The civil service exam was picked up by many countries around the world, but famously abolished by China in the 20th century after reformers like Kang Youwei called for their end as China was looking to modernization. Before that, however, it became the primary mode of recruitment for government offices. The civil service exam was able to align political legitimacy with competency, appealing to and uplifting the idea of a meritocracy. The exam became more popular than any other type of political appointment, even yin, or kinship, privilege.  The civil service exam was not without fault though. Though touted as the key to social mobility and making the government accessible to the people, it was a very elitist system that necessitated men dedicate roughly thirty years of their life to the memorization of Confucian texts and other impractical and esoteric subject matter. This requirement meant that only wealthy families could afford to support and thoroughly prepare their sons for this exam. (Predictably, women were barred from taking the exam, Fu Shanxiang being one notable exception.)

[listening-to-thunder]

Style guide, Chinese names

How do you properly transliterate Chinese names with more than one character, e.g. 云澜 or 一龙? I got curious about what the style guides out there say, and apparently the answer is: for Mainland China, always together. So: Yunlan and Yilong is the correct way of writing those names according to standard Hanyu Pinyin. Some excerpts from style guides & other sources:

Join together (without spaces or hyphens) the syllables associated with multi-character surnames and given names. Also join together given names, Buddhist names, courtesy names, etc., in more than one syllable. For example: 孫中山 Sun Zhongshan 歐陽修 Ouyang Xiu 司馬相如 Sima Xiangru 尼克森 Nikesen 康有為 Kang Youwei  [-Library of Congress]

Mainland China: in two parts, eg Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Jiang Zemin. Hong Kong, Taiwan: in two parts with hyphen, eg Tung Chee-hwa, Chiang Kai-shek (exception: when a building, park or the like is named after a person it becomes three parts, eg Chiang Kai Shek Cultural Centre). Singapore, Malaysia: in three parts, eg Lee Kuan Yew. [-The Guardian/The Observer]

Personal names are written with the surname and the given name separated, and with each of the two components capitalized.

In the past it was common to separate the two syllables of a Han given name in writing by a hyphen, as: Zhōu Ēn-lái. This is not considered standard usage in Hanyu Pinyin. [-pinyin.info]

Individuals’ names in Chinese should appear in pinyin with surname first and given name represented as one unhyphenated word, i.e. Jiang Zemin.  [-Brill]

[circusheart]

kang youwei pros and cons:

pros:

socialist

pro-gay marriage (in the 1880s!)

anti-nuclear families

roughly guessed at what the internet would be, a century early

cons:

was a eugenicist

anti-religions-that-werent-chinese-in-origin-or-buddhism

succeeded at nothing in his life

back to pros:

did not succeed in eugenics

[garyzhuzyc]

127 years ago today, Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao gathered more than 1,300 people to sign a joint letter to Guangxu Emperor Aixinjoruo Zaitian to oppose the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki by the Qing government, which had lost the Sino-Japanese War. This is called "books on the bus". It is the symbol of the reformists on the stage of history, but also the beginning of the political movement of the Chinese masses. https://www.instagram.com/p/CdDRomYJZtW/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[nurhaciturnsinhisgrave]

Press Release by Ying Guixin and Xie Zantai

Today the Qing has attempted to kidnap a reformist that has always been negotiating peacefully with the government. The attempted kidnapping of Kang Youwei clearly highlights that the Qing has no intention to participate in peaceful reform.

The way forward for China is clear: To shake off the yoke of the Qing. While we may disagree with many of our reformist colleagues’ views, we remain resolute in our wholehearted condemnation for the Qing’s underhanded methods of stifling revolutionary sentiment.Today, the reformists. Tomorrow, who knows?

[clarencevrangr]

And yet some Chineses feminists of the end of the XIXe wanted to let the women decide by themselves about their foot. Did you hear about Xue Shaohui ? She was against every form of contraignant law about the footbinding. The anti-footbinding movement was principally a masculine movement. They didn’t really consider the pain of footbinding but see footbinding women as the weakness of China. In 1898, Kang Youwei write to the emperor :

« There is nothing which makes us objects of ridicule so much as footbinding... With posterity so weakened, how can we engage in battle? I look at Europeans and Americans, so strong and vigorous because their mothers do not bind feet and therefore have strong offspring. »

So, a lot of this men wanted to punish footbinding women if they didn’t liberate their foot. Unbinding the foot once you are an adult was a pain far far harder than binding the foot when you are young. Women could almost die of unbinding foot, they could lost the possibility of walk without broking their bones at every step.

At last, to force footbinding women to unbound their foot was cruel. The movement didn’t need to do that, they only had to look at the little girls and prevent their binding.

If you want more information about footbinding you can read « Cinderella’s Sisters, a revisionist history of footbinding » by Dorothy Ko. It’s a classic.

Some women like to be burned at the stake! Don’t stake shame them UwU

[confusedbyinterface]

And now his great granddaughter is an olympic badminton player for Australia!

(I don't think he ever made it here, it might have been one of his 15 kids)