See, Lisa.  Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: a Novel.  New York:  Random House, 2005.

Every once in a while, a book opens a window into a different world, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is one of nineteenth-century rural China, of womanhood, of agony, and of an unlikely friendship.  Unlike other authors, See does not mask cultural norms that may be disturbing to others.  For example, the art of footbinding, which to us, in a western culture, is incomprehensible, is explained as something to invoke pride and honour.

Emotion provoking, haunting, and always enchanting, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a book to be read by anyone willing put their preconceived ideas of the Chinese culture aside to explore the consequence of fate.