Extraordinary and Unaccountable Customs: British Observations on Population, Infanticide, and Footbinding in China

Abstract

From the mid-1700s through the late 1830s, Britons in China were confined to a tiny section of Canton (Guangzhou). This encounter is known best for the subsequent Opium War and the 'opening' of China. But it also generated a massive corpus of writings. Frustrated with the restrictions on trade, these Britons devoted thousands of pages in journals, memoirs, and books to trying to understand China, its people, and culture. They discussed almost everything they saw, and speculated about much that they could not see. This paper examines two aspects of this enterprise: determining the extent of infanticide and the origins and meanings of footbinding, which were both part of a larger project of understanding China and represented some of the difficulties and complications inherent in doing so. Which Chinese sources could be trusted, especially when the Qing government forbade foreigners to learn Chinese? How reliable were accounts by earlier European travelers and by the Jesuit missionaries, whose glowing descriptions of China contradicted what Britons now encountered? These discussions also coincided with an emerging belief in Europe that a nation's level of civilization depended on the condition of its women. They reveal a sophisticated level of interest in China – admittedly to help open it to foreign trade and Christian evangelization, but also to understand it on its own terms. In the face of ever-increasing publications on China in the West, they were also a way for Britons who spent time in China to distinguish themselves as experts on the Middle Kingdom.