Jordan, Sherryl - The Hunting of the Last Dragon

[oyceter]

Yet another fantasy with Asian bits in it! And it was kind of cool when I realized the girl was Chinese. The way the book was written kind of annoyed me -- the premise is that the main character, Jude, is telling his story of killing the last dragon to a monk, and the monk is copying down every single thing he says! This includes all the "Well, hi

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"A Thousand Pieces of Gold"

[knullabulla]

I had taken a american lit. class in college that focused on various experiences of women in america... one of the books we read was a semi-biographical account of a Chinese woman's journey from being dirt-poor in China to being dirt-poor in America (woohoo! Three cheers for progress! [crickets chirping]).

Anyway, the novel had a foot "unbinding" sequence at the very beginning that was extremely integral to the character development. The girl's (the novel takes place over the course of her life-time) father needs help with the farm or else the evil landlord will take everything. She doesn't have any brothers who can help out, so she asks her mom to help her uncurl her feet. It's been a while since I've read it... but from what I recall, the foot unbinding wasn't about westernizing the character--but more about the girl's loyalty and love for her family. She unbinds her feet, not for looks... but for function. The novel also made it clear that unbinding her feet wasn't going to make them look more westernized... she ends up with a permanent limp and she never says anything like, "Golly, I wish I had big ass feet so I can attract a sexy white guy."

Overall, the novel was fairly so-so. Just about everything you can think of happens to the her over the course of her novel, so it seems a bit soap opera-ish... but it's supposedly based on a true story.

Oh, and she gets a cool pet mountain lion.

Re: "A Thousand Pieces of Gold"

[oyceter]

*nods* I can definitely see that. And I don't particularly think the unbinding sequence in this book was meant as Westernizing or anything, but I guess I was wondering in general how realistic it would be to have some upper-class girl from China decide to unbind her feet for her own freedom. I don't know enough to really guess -- the nearest equivalent I could think of was someone in the eighteen hundred throwing away their corset. And I'm sure people did that too...

Heh. Just read an article on the airplane on the wearing of high heels and how some doctors think it's about the worse thing to happen to feet since foot binding!

Re: "A Thousand Pieces of Gold"

[knullabulla]

Well, the big difference between de-corsetting and de-binding is that with the former you end up feeling better immediately, with the later, it sounds like it's one long and painful process.

Something about scenes in which the upper-class girl decides to buck the system... they've never really rang true for me... they always seem waaaaaaay too modern for the time period they're set it.

But if she's taking off her corsett or de-binding her feet in order to do some actual *work*, then I find it far more believable.

Re: "A Thousand Pieces of Gold"

[oyceter]

*nods* I remember reading stuff about (way too many of my sentences start this way) corsets deforming inner organs, but I'm not sure how much of that is propaganda and/or very extreme cases.

Very much agree on the upper-class girl bucking the system thing. It's always felt too Mary-Sueish for me.