Things Feudal China Already Considered Old-Fashioned

The ancients chased the new and ditched the old just like the rest of us. By the Tang dynasty, several rituals carried over from earlier courts had already been dismissed as fussy and dated, while certain Chu-region customs from the Han era were shrugged off as provincial long before then. Style cycles moved faster than most history books care to admit.

What drew the most side-eye? Old habits, mostly. Foot-binding, once fashionable, was openly mocked by Ming and Qing literati as a relic of a cruder age. The most elaborate funeral rites were quietly trimmed down across the Tang and Song, a low-key rebellion against excess.

The tug between old and new is hardly a modern invention. Every era had its own retro craze and its backlash, more often than not playing out within the same generation.