Three-Inch Golden Lotus – Key Characters & Concepts

Vocabulary flashcards cover the novel’s major characters, key cultural concepts of footbinding, and contrasting Chinese/Western perspectives.

Fragrant Lotus

Protagonist who is initially terrified of footbinding but later wields it for social power; mother of Pretty Flower.

Granny

Older woman who forces Fragrant Lotus to bind her feet, symbolising generational pressure to conform.

Pretty Flower (Lotus Heart)

Fragrant Lotus’s daughter; nearly killed by her mother to save her from future footbinding.

Tong Ren-an

Patriarch who demands tiny-footed brides for his four sons; dies heart-broken when his antique shop collapses.

Aunt Pan

Former maid to Golden Treasure who switches sides to help Fragrant Lotus win a foot-competition; commits suicide after Tong Ren-an’s death.

Peaches

Fragrant Lotus’s loyal maid who tries to spirit Pretty Flower away to spare her from footbinding.

Tong Shao-hua

Second Tong son; indifferent to antiques, cedes the family shop to the corrupt warehouse keeper Living Sufferer.

Golden Treasure

Fragrant Lotus’s chief rival in the renowned foot-beauty competition; mother of Moon Orchid and Moon Cassia.

Moon Orchid

Obedient daughter of Golden Treasure who keeps her bound feet and traditional role.

Moon Cassia

Golden Treasure’s other daughter who unbinds her feet at a Western school, later returns home in pain and helplessness.

Living Sufferer

Warehouse keeper who steals the Tong family antiques and collaborates with the broker Niu.

Niu

Middleman enlisted by Peaches to hide Pretty Flower from footbinding demands.

Footbinding

Traditional practice of tightly binding young girls’ feet to create a three-inch ‘golden lotus,’ viewed as both status symbol and beauty ideal.

Superstition (regarding footbinding)

Belief that women with bound feet would gain beauty, success, and even walk ‘on lotus flowers’ bringing luck.

Origins of Footbinding

Traced to Tang-dynasty dancers who danced on tiptoe, making small feet appear alluring.

Empowerment vs. Dehumanization

Footbinding grants some women status and domestic authority (empowerment) yet cripples mobility and autonomy (dehumanization).

Cultural / Social Implications

Tiny feet symbolize beauty and higher marriage prospects, reinforcing patriarchal gender hierarchies.

Chinese View of Footbinding

Associates small feet with feminine beauty, virtue, and family honor; many men prefer bound-footed wives.

Western View of Footbinding

Considers the custom impractical and barbaric; beauty measured in other body parts rather than feet.

Westernization

Adoption of foreign customs such as natural feet and leather shoes, seen as modern and progressive.

Modernization

Broader social progress—education, press, new roles for women—that Fragrant Lotus argues can coexist with bound feet.

‘Modern Woman’ (in the novel)

A Chinese woman who embraces new ideas or schooling while negotiating traditional norms, with or without bound feet.