UPDATE: Contrary to my earlier sarcasm, up to 70% of urban women in Taiwan once had their feet bound for cosmetic reasons – but the practice was completely eradicated many, many years ago.
(Image from Aspundir.blogspot.ca.)
UPDATE #2: The full quote, from Joe Hung's latest China Post column:
Every presidential candidate promises reform. It's a hackneyed political cliche. Incidentally, no reform has ever succeeded in Chinese history. Can anyone build a corruption-free government? Corruption is universal, and no governments have succeeded in stomping out corruption and graft throughout history. Transparency in government is an ideal every democracy clings to, but has never fully achieved. [emphasis added]
All reforms are failures then, unless they deliver utopia. That's Joe Hung, setting the bar a little too high.
i-2