Rebecca :
Hello Beverley, I've been re-reading your Splendid Slippers & pondering on my first question for our interview. It's been a bit difficult because you explain so much in your amazing book except...
Why China?
Beverley :
Had a great desire to walk on the Great Wall -- my only real interest in China. I was a student of Italian Renaissance art. My chance came in February 1975 during the Cultural Revolution. A group of ten of us including Steve Allen & Jayne Meadows went to the First Annual Tientsin Carpet Fair. We were fortunate enough to get one month visas which no one else could get back then.
After time in Tientsin & Beijing, I was determined to go on The Orient Express to Shanghai; I drove the authorities so crazy they finally allowed it if someone else would go too. So I talked two women in our group into it. We were very limited in our movements. At night there was nothing to do. We'd been forbidden to take any reading material into China. No TV. No movies. Only acrobatic shows after dinner. Well, after a couple of weeks of acrobatic shows get a bit too much, so the three of us played ping pong after dinner every night in Shanghai.
One night both of them had food poisoning & I was on my own, wandering the halls of the former Cathay Hotel, now Peace Hotel, looking at the interesting Art Deco details. Was getting really bored with that when a dear old waiter, who spoke English, saw me at the end of a deserted hall (they weren't allowed to speak to us except to answer questions we might ask) & whispered that there was a ship of Polish sailors in port. It was sailing in the morning so authorities had opened the Friendship Store for them. He said, "So go shopping". I got my flashlight (no street lights or anything in those days) & walked a couple of blocks to the Friendship Store where foreigners could shop. Ended up buying a lovely turquoise robe heavily embroidered with peonies.
In Santa Barbara the following month, at a garage sale with a friend, I picked up a good-looking embroidered Chinese jacket I thought would go well with some velvet pants, & so it began. I became a major collector of Chinese textiles. Sold a large number of my robes at Christie's in a big sale in 1994.
In 1975 there was no access to native Chinese for westerners in China. Now there is no problem.
I learned about erotica mainly from Howard Levy's 1966 book on footbinding. That is his specialty!
How did you find Splendid Slippers?
Rebecca :
My favorite librarian turned me onto your Splendid Slippers & I devoured your book to the exclusion of gardening, cooking & such during the month of July 1999, had it reviewed & posted in record time, so enthralled & moved was I. Since then I've borrowed it almost every month to rest my eyes on Larry & Brad's exquisite photography & reread your stories & research, history & gaze at all those sepia photographs, your current color ones of the dear ladies & those lovely slippers.
Beverley :
How nice to return from a hectic weekend away to find your warm wonderful letter. You are so good for my morale! Thank you for all the kind words. I have forwarded to Veronica & asked her to share with Larry & Brad. I've sent a copy of both your review & letter to the owner/publisher of Ten Speed Press, Phil Wood.
They are just getting corrections done for new run of Splendid Slippers & I'm replacing one photo with a great one I have found. Not sure how long it will take. Printers in the Orient appear to have their own pace, a bit slower than mine! And then there is that long trip over on a ship. I know what they mean now about that slow boat from China I used to hear about -- except as I think about it, it was a slow boat to China. These days when I fly back & forth to China in about 14 hours it's hard to envision. But I remember when I was young the glorious boat trips to England or France & back to New York. It was all so glamorous then, but easier now I must admit. Put on my comfortable Reeboks, my jeans & a sweater and off I go. No glamour but a lot of comfort!
Rebecca :
I sailed from England to Portugal one spring & again when I emigrated I sailed to New York & saw the Statue of Liberty at dawn. I loved the shipboard life! What are your best hours for writing & do you have a set number of hours in each day when you work on your projects?
Beverley :
I try to spend 4 hours a day on each of 2 books I'm writing. This is only possible when I'm not doing lecture tours etc., of course. I am a night people. My friends are all trained -- no one calls me much before noon but for any crisis at night they call me up until 4 in the morning. I try to go to sleep by 4, my dog gets me up at 8:00 promptly each morning, a quick run outside (we live on second floor), she gulps her breakfast down, & we both go back to sleep for 3 hours more! I have finally given into the way I live best -- turning night into day or in Spain!
Rebecca :
I'd like to ask a possibly rude question: because I have lived in other countries I'm curious about their toilets. Portugal, France, Canada, Britain & Mexico all have different attitudes about our bodily functions - bidets beside little round toilets, overhead flushing tanks, waterclosets separate from ablution rooms, outdoor urinals. What about relief stations in China both private & public?
Beverley :
Of course, you don't mean western style hotels which are western style. It's standup or squat, generally squat. Hotels in small towns will have old fashioned wood toilets with overhead tanks sometimes. Generally, you'd better be good at balancing & have good knees! There are public restrooms that you pay a small amount to use in big cities now, but these are generally not western style either, just a better version of above!
Rebecca :
Back to your Splendid Slippers: is your Slipper collection in pairs? Do you often get notification of a find? Are there Slippers only in China & Malaysia now? Can you still find them globally, in America?
Beverley :
Mainly in pairs. For something very unusual I'll buy a single & there are certain shoes that have a footform in them, & a legging over the top & those seldom come in pairs but I grab the singles when they appear.
I don't trust most of the shoes in China & Malaysia now. They are reproducing them for the tourists -- & for the tremendous number of people suddenly collecting -- & afraid a lot of it is my fault, because of Splendid Slippers. I get email from all over the world from people asking advice on collecting. My best shoes in past were found in England & a lot of good ones in this country. They were brought back by missionaries etc., & tucked away in a curio cabinet, long ago losing their history. Collectors can do just as well at a Mid-West garage sale sometimes as from a fine dealer. More likely these days to find "the real thing" at a garage sale in a small town!
I actually bought my first pair 20 plus years ago in a really
junky little "antique" shop in Edinburgh, Scotland & inside the shoes was stamped "St. Mary's in the Woods, Indiana". I tracked it down to the Mother House of the Sisters of St. Mary's in the Woods, outside Indianapolis, Indiana. They had teaching orders & nursing Sisters in China & some of the Sisters had brought home souvenirs when they returned early in the 20th century.
Rebecca :
What is the average price of a pair, a single? How do you store, ship & exhibit them?
Beverley :
I've paid anywhere from a couple of dollars in remote areas of China & in antique stores 20 years ago to $750 for one lovely pair of shoes to be worn at an advanced stage of mourning -- white with a lot of embroidery. Different rules for different stages of mourning. This pair is white silk with beautiful embroidery & tiny weeping willow trees (the trees are the reason I was so wild with my money!) Singles are generally in the $25 price range as most people want pairs. The unusual ones with tall foot forms & leggings of course can run $200. I exhibit only one shoe of each pair in locked specially built glass cabinets in my home.
The other shoe is carefully packed away in acid free tissue & acid free boxes stored elsewhere. Living at the beach in Southern California, there is always a chance of forest fire, flood, tidal wave, earthquake. I figure I am just the caretaker of my Chinese treasures & at least this way half the shoes will be safe for the next generations to see if disaster does strike.
When they travel, they're right with me. I sometimes take samples to show with my lectures. I carry one of each pair only, of course; & there must be a locked cabinet for showing them when I get there. I seldom loan to museums for exhibition. I will be loaning some for a special exhibition next fall -- one shoe each again -- & I will fly them up to Northern California for this myself.
Rebecca :
Did you find that the Quest of the Slippers took you over & you were simply the willing servant in search of the stories & information?
Beverley :
Definitely! to first part of question. As I write in my introduction to Splendid Slippers, I hated that old lady doll my mother bought me in San Francisco's Chinatown when I was about seven because of her weird little feet. Well, she has really gotten the last word! The shoes have taken over my life in some ways!!
Rebecca :
What was the strangest place you went to?
Beverley : Remote areas of China have been the most foreign to me I guess, except I feel very at home somehow there. I'm convinced even with my blue eyes & strawberry blond hair I was Chinese in another life.
Rebecca :
It was New York for me the day I debarked from the passenger liner & had to make my way to the train station to catch my ride to Chicago. What was your happiest place?
Beverley :
I was asked some years ago by an interviewer for a top fashion magazine where, after all my travels, I'd most like to go: without even hesitating the most surprising answer came out of
my mouth: "I'd love to see Paris again for the first time." Wish I could underline with this because I'd underline first. Have spent a
great deal of happy, though sometimes frustrating, time there but it is never quite the same.
Rebecca :
I loved Paris too, however my stay on the Atlantic coast of Portugal was where I was the happiest. It was the first time I lived in a hot climate, ate fresh food everyday, lost a lot of weight & felt good. Were the attitudes of these dear ladies' families changed at all after you opened up their pasts & their stories?
Beverley :
They seemed relieved in some cases to finally put into words what has been kept inside them all their lives. No one, not even their families, ever asked them anything about their bound feet. So many Americans of Chinese descent come up to me after my lectures & say they are fascinated because their whole childhood was spent with women of bound feet -- mother, grandmothers, aunts, even sisters -- nothing was ever said, explained, shown. They have learned about them only from me. I think the letter from Lily at the end of Splendid Slippers tells this so perfectly. I've found it again & again & again. The line -- "scar there on feet and in heart" has come up again & again. When they finally can put it into words, many of them are deep down very bitter that their mothers would allow them to be submitted to the torture, the scar is there on the heart.
Rebecca :
Would they have had their daughters' feet bound if the custom had not been abolished?
Beverley :
Yes, because the Chinese follow tradition blindly really. They do things because their ancestors did them.
Rebecca :
What are the 3 most asked questions during your lecture tours?
Beverley : "Is it really true that poor people bound their daughters too?" They find this hard to believe.
"Could they really walk on them?" My last trip last November I took photos of women with bound feet climbing stairs, carrying two pails of water on a shoulder pole while walking, etc. to prove this. Wish I'd thought to do it before and had in book.
"How can I tell if a pair of shoes is the real thing or if it is made for tourists?"
Rebecca :
What are the gender/racial/age mixes of your audiences?
Beverley :
I prefer not to allow children under 12 into lectures because of sexual content. I spoke to a group a couple of years ago called Old Treasures who are all over 85 and collect antiques. There were women there of 94. I generally get more women than men when I speak in afternoons, but nighttime & weekend lectures they come in pairs. The men seem almost more interested than the women sometimes. They are totally fascinated. I get a tremendous number of Chinese at the lectures because they want to learn about their past.
At one lecture at the San Francisco Arts of Pacific Asia Antique Show a couple of years ago, one elderly man had me sign six books to his daughters & daughters-in-law & granddaughters. Then the dealers told me he went around & bought six expensive pairs of shoes. He gave each of them a book & a pair of shoes to better understand their heritage. A wonderful idea & an expensive one; some of the shoes he bought were $500!
Rebecca :
I hope you don't feel these are too many questions or frivolous - I do realize you have a hectic busy life!
Beverley :
You are a good interviewer. Good questions.
Rebecca :
I'm placidly plodding along, sniffing blooming elderberries & fringe cups, listening to black bears snuffle in the wetlands, coyotes yapping at the sheep & cougars growling on the hillsides. Ah, sweet spring! Not to mention the juggernaut trucks rumbling to & fro, scurrying like gargantuan ants or beetles, with their loads of rubble as the last hairpin bend in the Road is prepared for spanning.
Beverley :
Why does progress have to keep destroying the beauty of nature!
Rebecca :
When I first moved up here the propane company called itself Paradise Propane. A few years later they repainted their tanks & called themselves Suburban - I felt like Eve standing on the edge of Eden, watching the world change from paradise to suburbia. What's your next project?
Beverley :
I have a passion again for the book I'm working on now. It is going to be so beautiful & I'm insisting on final approval of all art, endpapers, cover etc. The next one is on the beautiful blue kingfisher feather jewelry & household ornaments the Chinese made. It will be beautiful. But of course it won't have the wonderful human involvement I had with my lovely women with bound feet.
Did I write you I went back to the same area last November where I photographed women in 1997. Wanted mainly to find the family of the enchanting 106 year old woman I have in the beginning of the book. I wanted to take them large copies of that photo of her to remember her. Well, to my amazement she was still alive -- & she remembered me! She is now 108-1/2 & quite marvelous. I never cried so many tears of joy.
I'm so glad I've met you -- via email. You don't live in California by any chance do you?
Rebecca :
No, I don't live in California - did for 4 years back when the '70s turned into the '80s & then discovered the great Pacific Northwest. It's a wonderful place to live & when I visit my children in Seattle I'm amazed that once I was a big city gal - London, Lisbon, Chicago, Berkeley!
I deeply appreciate the time you've given to these answers. Consider yourself hugged, Beverley - your emails made my days!
RebeccasiReads.com
