Brigitte Kwan

"Brigitte" Kwan (Traditional Chinese: 関秀華; Pinyin: Guān Xìuhuá; Cantonese IPA: Gwaan Sauwaa )

Born in Canton, China, Kwan was one of the pioneer Chinese feminists who advocated against the practice of foot binding (zh-stp|t=纏足|s=缠足|p=chánzú, literally "bound feet") and feudal misogyny in Imperial China. Of Manchu aristocratic lineage, Kwan was born as the female baby of an aristocratic fraternal twin pair at the turn of the century.

Early life

At a tender age, the young child received an education in Confucian Chinese classics, a rarity for women of the times, who were not traditionally allowed access to education. [She rebelled against a traditional male patriarchy system of control on women in Qing China] . Although women of the Han Chinese aristocracy and upper bourgeoisie were constrained by patriachal feudalism, and had their feet broken and bound as babies, the female Manchu aristocrats did not conform to this custom, as they exercised greater political power in the society than Han Chinese women did. Not only was Kwan's feet not bound, she started a movement and encouraged other Han Chinese women to do the same to later generations, and openly advocated against feet-binding in a male-dominated society, despite protests.

First feminist of China

In the great flood of Nanhai, many women with bound feet drowned, being unable to swim with minute, distorted feet, or even run to escape, many others remained trapped in deep waters. Kwan swam and rescued many women by placing them one after another on rooftops and nearly lost her own life in exhaustion. She was commended by many aristocratic Chinese women as a Feminist heroine, becoming a Joan of Arc figure, and is often referred to as the first feminist of China.

Later life

After the fall of the Qing dynasty and the increasing attacks against the Qing Manchu, she fell in love with a Han Chinese, a Sun Yat-sen partisan and military commander Wong Sung-mong Huang Zhongwen (Chinese: 黄仲文) Huang Zhongwen born Y.S. Wong (Chinese: 黄玉书), rumored to be part of the Tongmenghui, was tutored by an Imperial scholar - Jìnshì (進士), and a trained physician (daifu - 大夫), before fighting in Sun Yat-sen's army in the Northern Expedition. After the end of the war, the pair found themselves stranded in a devastated, destroyed China. Following the Tongmenghui's history of raising relief funds for war efforts in China through the United States and South-east Asia, the pair secretly eloped into British zone through Hong Kong, and set sail to Nanyang (modern day South-east Asia), onto British Crown territories, stopping at Phoenix City (Traditional Chinese: 鳳城：Hanyu Pinyin Fengcheng) (modern day Kuala Lumpur), Penang and Singapore. In a bid to raise funds for poverty relief in China, the pair set up a volunteer institution teaching Confucian Classics and the classical Chinese language, and accepted the poor and the rich alike into their school. Her husband also returned to his previous practice as a physician.

Before they could return to Canton through Hong Kong from the British Crown colony of Singapore, they founded themselves amidst a sudden invasion by the Japanese soldiers at the outbreak of World War II. Kwan, herself a male-female fraternal twin pair, gave birth to her last children, a pair of fraternal twins of different sexes. Under severe food rationing from Japanese kempeitai marauding of civilian food supplies, both babies suffered from malnutrition, malaria and dysentery. She was forced to leave a dead male baby near a refuse pile, after it expired its last breath. Her eldest daughter, not bearing it, brought the dead corpse back, and miraculously, it sprang to life again. However, the other female twin baby died not long after.

Separation and death

After the World War II ended, the People's Republic of China was sealed off from the outside world upon Soviet instigation and Kwan was not permitted to re-enter China. Kwan spent most of her life outside China, dreaming of a return and reunion with her twin brother to resurrect an Imperial China that she would never again see. This heroine and first feminist of China passed away in the 1980s.

References

External links

* http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/hsc/evrev/chinese_dress.htm
* http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1155872