Annual J. Earl Moreland Lecture on the Subject of Chinese Foot-Binding
by Becky Johnsen ‘10
Culture Editor
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On Thursday, March 13, Randolph-Macon College held its annual J. Earl Moreland Lecture. The lecture, which is held every spring, was established through the donation of alumnus Doctor Lik Kiu Ding to commemorate Doctor Moreland, a former R-MC President. Doctor Lik Kiu Ding, as a student living abroad in the United States, was inspired and assisted by Doctor Moreland during his time at Randolph-Macon. Through the lecture series, R-MC has hosted numerous esteemed experts on Asian affairs from Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Notre Dame, the University of Hong Kong, the Smithsonian Institution, and even a leader of the democratic party of Hong Kong.
This year, Doctor Dorothy Ko, a former student at Randolph-Macon, visited to give a talk on “Footbinding and Chinese History”. Doctor Ko has written several works on the subject, including Cinderella’s Sisters: A Revisionist History on Footbinding, Every Step a Lotus: Shoes for Bound Feet, and Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century China. Doctor Ko was an animated speaker who immediately broke the ice with the audience by sharing a few of her adventures at Randolph-Macon in the seventies.
Upon arriving, I was pleasantly surprised that almost all of the seats in Wash-Frank’s ground-level room were filled. Within a few minutes of sitting down, all of the seats were taken. The crowd contained a good mix of students, professors, and a few people from the community. Although I was seated in the back of a crowded room, I found it easy to hear and see all that Doctor Ko had to display. She set up a series of images and slides to chronicle the “complicated” history of footbinding.
Footbinding is the centuries-old Chinese practice in which, from a young age, girls would have their feet wrapped in bandages to fold the foot into a much smaller size. Doctor Ko stressed that although the toes would be pulled back, if performed properly, the bones should not break. In addition, many of the horror stories about infection and gangrene only occurred if the binding was not properly wrapped or maintained. The process was designed to be painful, but relatively free of danger.
In opening, Doctor Ko stated, “Footbinding is, first and foremost, a woman to woman story”. In saying this, she abolished the common misconceptions that Chinese men submitted their women to this painful practice in order to subdue them. In fact, footbinding had progressed through Chinese culture as a way for women to showcase gentility and good upbringing. Women regarded other women with unbound feet as lowly, even as prostitutes.
Footbinding had its origins in the 6th-10th Centuries in which small feet were idealized in Chinese poetry, and court dancers began to bind their feet. By the 12th Century, this practice spread to gentry families, and by the 16th Century, it became popular with the middle class. However, footbinding solidified into a Chinese way of life when the ruling Manchurians tried to ban it in an attempt to impose their own culture upon them. This attempt failed, and the tradition continued until the arrival of photography in the 1860’s. As photographs of Chinese culture were released abroad, Chinese officials, intellectuals, and reformers became obsessed with reversing the worldview that China was the “sick man of Asia”. Footbinding became viewed as a torturous and barbaric custom; these sentiments arose in a national anti-footbinding movement. Officials would force women to unbind their feet, oftentimes resulting in crippling consequences. The movement swept the country, eradicating footbinding permanently by the 1930’s. The last reported case was in 1957.
Dr. Ko’s lecture provided me with an entirely knew perspective on something I had vehemently opposed. My prior knowledge of footbinding was only what I heard casually, so I knew only opinions, not facts. Although I cringe sympathetically at what the pain of beauty must have been, I am intrigued by this old custom that helped solidify the pecking order of women in China for hundred of years. This has been my first Moreland Lecture, but I am sure to be in attendance for future speakers.
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We Could All Use More Steroids in our Lives
by Troy Carter ‘08
Political Editor
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Welcome back to the political editorial page, which I am sure is the first page you always open to just to see what godless extremist hippy policy Troy will be advocating next. A ban on marriage? A ban on Christmas? Sustainable foreign policy? Better. This week I’m taking a break from the big political stage to come out into the open and declare it proudly: I am pro-drug use. Yes, this week we’re talking about steroids in baseball.
Let’s start with a trip in the WABAC machine. The destination: August of 1998. Ken Griffey Jr is on pace to repeat his 1997 performance of 56 homeruns while Chicago Cub Sammy Sosa and St. Louis Cardinal Mark McGwire are both on pace to break Roger Maris’ single season homerun record of 61 homeruns. All through August fans were entertained by the greatest record chase that professional sports had seen in 37 years. McGwire and Sosa seemed destined to break the record, but the only question was who would do it first, and who would ultimately hold the record at the season’s end. The chase finally ended in dramatic fashion in St. Louis on September 7th as Mark McGwire broke Roger Maris’ record against, who else, the Chicago Cubs.
With the possible lone exception of Cal Ripken’s streak, the homerun chase was the single most memorable baseball event of the nineties, and generated the most excitement that baseball has seen in recent memory. As a Chicago-native Cardinals fan I hereby declare it: if steroids gave us the homerun chase of 1998, then baseball needs more steroids. If steroids gave us Roger Clemens’ Cy Young performance of the same year, then baseball needs more steroids. If steroids gave us Rick Ankiel’s return to professional ball and a tearful Tony LaRussa as the comeback kid crushed homers last year, then we could all use a little more steroids in our lives.
Arguments against steroids usually fall into one of two categories. The first can be summarized as “won’t somebody please think of the children?” Steroids do have destructive impacts on the bodies of athletes and by no means is taking steroids advisable, especially for high school and college athletes. Role models for children using illegal substances is nothing new, however, and Congress has not been holding hearings on drug use in the rock or hip hop industries. Illegal drugs gave us the Beatles, Dr. Dre and Bob Marley. Andy Pettit is not the one pushing drugs on our children. Using steroids is unadvisable, just like a lot of things that major media figures do.
The other category of arguments against steroid use in baseball is that having modern-era players break historic baseball records “cheapens” the record. This argument makes two false assumptions. The first is that players using steroids would otherwise be talentless hacks and have not worked for their records. Even granting that steroids give athletes an edge over competitors, a world class athlete on steroids would still be a world class athlete without steroids. Steroids only add so much. The players breaking records today are every bit as talented as the players whose records they are breaking, and they’re breaking these records against better competition. The second false assumption made in saying that records are being cheapened is that fans somehow no longer care about the records. Using the example of the McGwire/Sosa record chase again, though, a highly anticipated chase for the record was watched worldwide. The kind of attention given to these records only gives the records more prominence rather than cheapening them. Barry Bonds’ “tainted” career home run record was as closely followed as any sports story of this decade. More fans have been made aware of and excited by the record, and I don’t think we need to worry about baseball fans forgetting Hank Aaron.
It may seem immoral. It may even be illegal. But if steroids have given us better baseball and more baseball fans, then by all means, play ball.
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A Sickening Race to Glory in Baseball
by Michael Jarvis ‘08
Staff Writer
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Sacred records that have been held for decades in baseball seem to be pretty meaningless nowadays. These records that were carved from the bats and gloves of baseball greats from long ago, and not so long ago, are seen as important links to baseball’s past and are a representation of baseball’s prestigious history. Now many of these records have been smeared by the juiced players of today’s era that have no regard for the way baseball used to be and should be played: cleanly.
When I was in the 8th grade I watched Mark McGuire hit home run after home run. That was the year he broke the record for home runs in a season. My teacher was a big Cardinals fan and she loved to talk about the home run race during school. I was young and steroids were not a hot button issue back then, so I had no knowledge of it, but a lot of evidence has come to light that suggests Mark McGuire used performance enhancing steroids. If that is the case, how does the mark that McGuire left have any actual relevance or truth to it? Many track and cycling starts that have been caught doping have had any awards they received stripped and their records erased. It seems that the American sporting world has not yet caught onto the advances in anti-doping laws that many organized European sports have already established and been using for some time. The American sporting leadership in many leagues seems hesitant to create strict anti-doping policies similar to ones used in European leagues. Why? They acknowledge doping is bad and it defaces the game, so why not hike up the punishment and try to suppress or stop the use of steroids in sporting? I think that if the American sports community can make initiates in this direction they would be much better off and would not have so many problems with steroid use.
Yeah, sure Troy, the 1998 home run race was great, but it also made me sick to my stomach. How can you tell me that seeing a couple guys jacking home runs so often you know they are doing something to get an edge is entertaining to you? At the time it was all good and well, but since all of these steroid allegations have come to light it puts a bad taste in my mouth. Barry Bonds, Rogers Clemons (and his wife), Rafael Palmero, and an endless list of others, famous and no so much, all make the game fun at a glance, but in hindsight it really makes the game look crappy. Why can’t you just go out there and train, work hard, and do your best naturally and call it a day? Is everyone afraid that if they don’t hit the most home runs or RBI’s that they aren’t going to get that 130 million dollar contract? Don’t worry everyone, whether you hit the most in the league on steroids or finish in the middle of the pack, I guarantee you that you will still get overpaid way more than if you had a regular job.
Now that the government has been dragged into things and has been calling in people for interviews and hearings after mud slinging and name calling, it just makes baseball look terrible. We have the modern era Joseph McCarthy in Jose Conseco. Since when did he become the uncontested authority on who doped and who didn’t? I mean sure he probably knows the names of a few people that have done it, but does everyone seriously believe the laundry list of names coming out of his mouth and books that he has written for the sole purpose of making money? I guarantee you that Mr. Conseco thought real long and hard about whose legacy he could tarnish just by mention of their name. He is making loads off of his books that say next to nothing and anyone he mentions has their career put in jeopardy just for simply having their name mentioned by him. If baseball really wants to put back the prestige it once had it will shut up Jose Conseco and create much stricter policies to help curb or get rid of doping altogether.
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