Social life and the People of Kin-sai
If you have difficulty finding the city of Kin-sai, it is located on the eastern coast of Asia (China).
This post is completely unrelated to the map, so I thought I’d just include it anyway for extra browny points. I really liked how Polo discussed more about social life in Kin-sai than the other travelers and I am most drawn by his account of the women of Kin-sai which I’m not too happy to read about but that’s another post for a women’s studies course.
“In other streets are the quarters of the courtesans who are here in such numbers as I date not venture to report. Not only near the squares, which is the situation usually appropriated for their residence, but in every part of the city they are to be found, adorned with much finery, highly perfumed, occupying well-furnished houses, and attended by many female domestics. These women are accomplished, and are perfect in the arts of caressing and fondling which they accompany with expressions adapted to every description of person. Strangers who have once tasted of their charms, remain in a state of fascination, and become so enchanted by their wanton arts, that they can never forget the impression. Thus intoxicated with sensual pleasures, when they return to their homes they report that they have been in Kin-sai, or the Celestial City, and look forward to the time when they may be enabled to revisit this paradise.” – pg. 51
This paragraph isn’t my most favorite description of the women of Kin-sai, but Polo does give insight to personal characteristics which the others don’t do. Polo also describes the physical features of the people of Kin-sai in the following sentence with more detail than the other travelers and the quotes stated gives you insight to how careful Polo observes and studies the people in his surroundings.
“The men as well as the women have fair complexions, and are handsome. The greater part of them are always clothed in silk, in consequence of the vast quantity of that material produced in the territory of Kin-sai, exclusively of what the merchants import from other provinces.”
Comments
Reading Polo's account of the women of Kin-sai (in the previous post in first quote) reminded me of the idea of "comfort women" which I've read partially in the book "The Rape of Nanking" and hearing about it from a friend of mine who studied the subject of comfort women in Japan. Comfort women were prominent in the early 1900s when women were used to comfort men in war with sex.
Reading the first quote of the previous post also brings up the question to how accepting the Chinese culture is when it comes to women and sexuality (comfort women) especially given real accounts of some Chinese women today who are also used to comfort business men in hotels. To this day, women in China are still highly sexualized and used as sexual commodities and reading Polo's account of the women in Kin-sai emphasizes the history of this sexual subculture.
This can also give you insight to where women stand in the social hierarchy of historical and present-day China. Not very high.
Posted by: Anonymous | January 25, 2007 12:03 PM