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The Song Dynasty also saw the development of numerous major technologies, including [[gunpowder]], [[porcelain]], and the first use of the [[compass]] - used for centuries for ''[[feng shui]]'' purposes - for maritime navigation.<ref name=worlds/> It was also during the Song Dynasty that [[footbinding]], which had originated among [[courtesans]] in the [[Tang Dynasty]], became widespread throughout Chinese society.<ref>Valerie Hansen, ''The Open Empire'', New York: W.W. Norton & Company (2000), 261.</ref>
The Song Dynasty also saw the development of numerous major technologies, including [[gunpowder]], [[porcelain]], and the first use of the [[compass]] - used for centuries for ''[[feng shui]]'' purposes - for maritime navigation.<ref name=worlds/> It was also during the Song Dynasty that [[footbinding]], which had originated among [[courtesans]] in the [[Tang Dynasty]], became widespread throughout Chinese society.<ref>Valerie Hansen, ''The Open Empire'', New York: W.W. Norton & Company (2000), 261.</ref>
The dramatic expansion of urban spaces & urban life (restaurants, teahouses, etc.), woodblock publishing, and other developments have led many scholars to characterize the Song Dynasty as "Early Modern China," paralleling similar developments in early modern Europe (late 15th-18th centuries?), and [[Edo period]] Japan. Others, noting the dramatic difference between Tang and Song, identify the Song as the beginning of the Late Imperial era, though both are problematic, since "early modern China" or "Late Imperial China" would then have to include roughly 900 years of history, from the height of the Song c. 1000 CE until the fall of the [[Qing Dynasty]] in [[1911]]. Thus, a different periodization scheme is called for; some simply call the Song part of the "Middle Period" of Chinese history.
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