For more information on the secret language spoken by Snow Flower, check out this website, where you can read more about the language, see examples of it, and learn about what scholars are doing to learn about it. This website also has some images of the wedding books that are described in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.
Some of the really interesting things about this book were learning about the footbinding process in such detail. None of us had any detailed knowledge of how footbinding was done, so the descriptions in the book were very interesting, and upsetting.
The strength of the women's friendships and the powerful potential of the secret writing to help married women survive in the harsh conditions of their husband's household were also striking. The beauty of the friendship between the two women as described in the book, and the idyllic life of poetry and embroidery was striking. On the other hand, the dangerous and painful process of binding the feet, being married out, and having to survive harsh conditions as a newly married woman in this time period was also central to the book. In our discussion, we considered how to reconcile these impressions of women's lives at the time.
