The Seattle Correspondent’s Gaze on China
A disorienting, 1877 report from a Seattle newspaper explores the rigid social hierarchies and gender dynamics of the Qing Dynasty through a lens of Victorian fascination.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
In no rank is the woman in China regarded as the companion of man, but is treated and looked upon solely as the slave of his caprice and passion. The poorest and lowest male has instruction thrust upon him, the most abject being able to educate their offspring gratuitously at the public expense. However, among the females, even of the highest ranks, few are found who can read or write. The woman's education is instead restricted and is comprised in being taught to sing and accompany themselves on the three-stringed guitar, to be obedient to their parents in youth, and subservient to the will of man in womanhood.
The women, or rather girls from the lower class, who are good-looking—that is, according to Chinese taste—are purchased frequently by rich men for handmaids or concubines. The Celestial has great difficulty in understanding the deference and respect with which Westerns treat their women, but puts it down to demoniacal arts practiced upon us by our fair compatriots.
No nation relies so much on foreign aid as they do, for they are literally one mass of paints, false hair, oils, and pork fat. The most barbarous object, however, is the crippling of their feet. The means adopted to arrive at this type of beauty is, at a very early age, the foot below the instep being forced into a line with the leg; the toes are then doubled down under the sole, the big toe being made to overlap the others. Bandages with an immense amount of pressure are then applied, and as they remain, for they are rarely removed, the inner ones when soiled being covered from time to time with fresh ones.
“The Celestial has great difficulty in understanding the deference and respect with which Westerns treat their women, but puts it down to demoniacal arts practiced upon us by our fair compatriots.”
This piece highlights the historical 'othering' of Chinese culture in Seattle newspapers of the 1870s, reflecting a period where such anthropological curiosity was often used to justify nativist exclusion. It serves as a reminder of how the media of the time framed the Pacific Rim not as a neighbor, but as a bizarre and distant curiosity.
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