Bound Feet & Western Dress: A Memoir
by By Chang, Pang-Mei Natasha
Category: Social Science , Ethnic Studies , General

"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.