MY TINY FEET An Essay On Chinese Footbinding My feet are exactly 9.2 inches long - usually, a size 4. In our world, where the average adult woman wears a size 8, my feet are small. But in China from around 920 AD until the early 20th century, my little feet would have been considered unnattractive and crude. To be an object of desire to the Chinese foot fetishists, my feet would have had to be three times smaller - 3 inches long. To achive this goal, the san zun jin lian or three inch golden lotus, a horrendous procedure of binding and breaking was performed over at least two years. This would begin in early childhood, usually aroung the ages of 5-10 because it was generally believed that a girl was beginning to mature and develop her life force, although having the feet bound at a younger or older age was not unknown. It was usually performed at a very young age because the bones of the feet still contain a lot of soft pre-bone cartilage that would be more easily moulded. If the child was too old, her feet would have to be broken before binding. The Procedure First, an auspicious day must be chosen. The Chinese had a very rich collection of superstitions, and such an important occasion as this must be given every chance to be successful. In the fictional book 'The Binding Chair', when the central character has her feet bound, her grandmother has her hold a water chestnut so her feet grow soft and a paintbrush so they are slender. I do not know how histoically accurate this is, but it is an example of a possible footbinding superstition. Before wrapping, the mother (or grandmother, if the mother refused), would clip the child's toenails short and wash her feet. Here, more superstitions were employed.. peculiar concoctions including frankinsence, boiled mokney bones and even still-warm animal blood were used to wash the feet with. After the feet were dried, alum, an astringent chemical, would be used like talc as a foot powder. The binding could then begin, by wrapping the foot in a strip of cloth 10 foot long and 2 inches wide. Each toe would be wrapped tightly into the sole, except the big one which was left free to point foward like a bamboo shoot. For two years or more, the little girl's baby feet would be bound tighter every day. As the bandages tightened, the skin beneath them would bleed and rot, causing terrible pain. Extremes of heat and cold would intensify this pain, so hot compresses in winter and cold compresses in summer were neccesary, as well as massage to keep the blood flowing. Despite this, it was not uncommon to lose a toe or two, and even adult women used tiny knives to scrape away the dead flesh of their feet. It was believed that the more flesh that was lost during the binding process, the prettier the end result would be. I wonder how many children died of blood poisoning and gangrene because of their society's lust for small feet? Throughout this torture, the girl would not be allowed to hide in bed or be carried wherever she went. She would be forced to walk on her maimed feet, not only to improve the deformation of the bones, but also because of the deformities to the rest of the leg as well. Women with bound feet had ankles so thin that they merged with the foot itself, but thighs that were broad and plump. A perfect foot would be one that was shaped like the bud of a louts flower. It would need to be full and rounded in the middle, tapering to the tiny point of the big toe. A deep fold would form between the ball of the foot and the heel, and this became admired simply in itself. The perfect fold would be tight enough and deep enough to hold a few coins. It's For Your Own Good Historically, we know that foot binding began towards the end of the T'ang Dynasty (618-906). It became common in the upper classes during the Song Dynasty (960-1297). During the next two dynasties, Ming (1368-1644) and Ching (1644-1911), foot binding became the done thing throughout mainstream China. The only groups to avoid it were the Manchu (although Manchu ladies wore high-platformed shoes to appear as if they had bound feet), the Hakka settlers and the poorest of peasants. Eventually, foot binding was prevented by law in the 1911 Revolution of Sun Yat-sen but not before over a billion women had gone through the binding process. Quite a few stories claim to explain the origins of bound feet, but none are certain to be true. The most popular tale says that the last T'ang emperor, Li-yu, had a concubine by the name of Yao-niang who had tiny feet that she would wrap in silk and dance, possibly en pointe like a ballet dancer, on a golden platform shaped like a lotus. Other women of the court copied her, hoping to have feet graceful enough to dance on a golden lotus too. Another story is that the T'ang empress had a clubfoot and the court ladies bound their feet up to copy her, maybe in a form of sympathetic magic to make them more like her. Yet one more tale tells that a fox-daemon wrapped it's paws in order to impersonate the empress, although it's harder to guess why the women of the court would want their footwear choices to suggest that. However it started, foot binding had became part of Chinese life. As with most fashions, it had a lot to do with sex. The foot became a focus of erotica. A perfect specimen would meet the seven criteria of small, slim, pointed, arched, fragrant, soft, and straight. It would look like a foot folded in half, with a deep cleft. The smallest ones would be 3 inches or less, but the average size was more likely to be 4 inches. But for all the praise such a foot may have gained, it may only have ever be unwrapped while its owner was alone. But still, praise it certainly would have gained. Unlikely though it may sound, it was said that the way a foot bound woman walked, mainly on her heels, tightened the vaginal muscles and enhanced the act of sexual intercourse. Whether this was true or not, like a modern-day foot fetishist, a Chinese man of those times would find the withered extremity to be highly arousing, even to the exclusion of the woman attached. Men would become aroused simply by a shoe intended for a bound foot. They would buy, beg, borrow or even steal these tiny shoes and pleasure themselves with them or even drink from them. Consider the way many men (and even women) in our world treat garments symbolizing people they find desirable.. fans frame t-shirts thrown to them by rock stars at a concert, college lads go on panty raids and cosplayers run rampant. And just like today, the fetishism occurred in many different ways. While one man may just enjoy seeing his wife's bound feet along with the rest of her body, another may adore the smell of dirty bindings. And some men even wanted to pleasure themselves by treating the fold of a bound foot like a vagina. The custom was more than just a sexual one though. It was certain that a woman with bound feet had gone through a lot of suffering, and having gone through this, a woman was supposed to be more civilized, disciplined, dutiful, less materialistic and stronger than she'd be in her natural state. These concepts were seen (as they always are in large and successful societies) to be very important qualities for a person to have. A saying of the times was that an ugly face is bad luck, but big feet are due to neglect. This attitude combined with all the benefits that foot binding was said to have made it necessary for a Chinese woman in mainstream culture to have bound feet. Without them, it was very hard for her to find her place in the world. People didn't like real feet on a feminine form.. to them it would have looked as weird as breasts on a man would look to us. And like our mild insult of 'manboobs' for the chest of a man who is a little too well-endowed, the Chinese called a foot over three inches a 'silver lotus'. A natural foot would be dubbed with the unpleasant epithet of 'iron lotus'. Liu-hsien's Seven Reasons In the 17th century, an author named Liu-hsien (sometimes called P’u Sung-hing), supported foot binding with these reasons: First: If a girl’s feet are not bound, people say she is not like a woman but like a man and they laugh at her, call her names, and her parents are ashamed of her. Second: Girls are like flowers, like the willow. It is very important that their feet be bound short so that they will walk beautifully, with mincing steps, swaying gracefully, thus showing they are persons of respectability. People praise them. If not bound short, they say the mother has not trained her daughter carefully. She goes from house to house with noisy steps and is called names. Therefore careful persons bind short. Third: One of good family does not wish to marry a woman with long feet. She is commiserated because her feet are not perfect. If betrothed, and the size of her feet is not discovered until after her marriage, her husband and her mother-in-law are displeased, her sisters-in-law laugh at her and she herself is sad. Fourth: The large-footed has to do rough work, does not sit in a sedan chair when she goes out, walks in the street barefooted, has no red clothes, does not eat the best food. She is wetted by the rain, tanned by the sun, blown upon by the wind. If unwilling to do all the rough work of the house, she is called gormandising and lazy. To escape all this, her parents bind her feet. Fifth: There are those with unbound feet who do no heavy work, wear gay clothing, ride in a sedan chair, call others to wait upon them. Although so fine, they are low and mean. If a girl’s feet are unbound, she cannot be distinguished from one of these. Sixth: Girls are like gold, like gems. They ought to stay in their own house. If their feet are not bound, they go here and there with unfitting associates. They have no good name. They are the defective gems that are rejected. Seventh: Parents are covetous. They think small feet are pleasing and will command a high price for a bride. - From Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio by P’u Sung-hing (commonly known as Liu-hsien) translated by Herbert A. Giles, 1880 Yin and Yang I have purposely avoided discussing the role of women in Chinese society and it's relation to foot binding until now, since it is a very deep and difficult topic. First, I wish to dispel the myth that women with bound feet were completely crippled and helpless. Although the deformed feet made it harder for women to walk, they certainly did not find walking impossible. Try it now.. walk like a woman with bound feet by raising the main part of your feet off the floor and walking with your weight on your heels. That probably doesn't duplicate exactly how it would be, but it's the nearest someone with normal feet can get. Women with bound feet still worked in the fields. They still carried their children, kept their houses neat and cooked meals for their families. While researching the custom, Professor Pamela Cooper interviewed an old bound footed woman who'd once walked ten miles to the fields, worked there all day and then walked back. She told the professor that she could outwork any man then and any man now! A pair of bound feet certainly symbolized a disciplined and loyal woman, but I cannot believe that feet were deformed in that way to prevent a woman from straying and making her dependant on the help of men. The bound-footed women who are alive today are capable of living without constant attention and more often than not, walking unaided or only needing the aid of a walking stick. In their younger days, they were likely to have been even more mobile. Remember that one of the tales related to bound feet is that it began to imitate a dancer. It wasn't even uncommon for a male to have his feet bound. Boys who were to be dancers or entertainers would have their feet bound, and male prostitutes would sometimes perform a belated attempt at binding their feet. This could show that the emphasis was beauty, not restraint. China was still a patriarchal society though, and women were expected to submit to the male head of the household, be he father, husband or son. But that was an ideal, just like my size 4 feet, the late Lola Ferrari's bosom, or indeed, the san zun jin lian. As with any ideal it had varying degrees of success. Many women, especially mothers, became matriarchs, intellectuals and political advisors. The women of the lower classes ran their households, managed businesses and worked alongside their menfolk. After the Song Dynasty, women retained ownership of their dowry and could accumulate quite a bit of money for themselves. Widows could remarry or become independent, and were highly respected if they remained loyal to the clan they married in to. Warrior women were not uncommon.. daughters of military families trained in martial arts, generals often chose wives who were as tough as they were, the fighting style Wing Chun was created by a nun and Hua Mu-lan was not just a Disney character. In Chinese spirituality, Yin was just as essential as Yang and no less important. So why were baby daughters seen as a disappointment? A central reason was carrying on the family line. The custom in ancient China (and many parts of the world even today ) was that a woman married into her husband's family, taking their name and essentially leaving her clan and becoming part of his. If a family were to have only girl children, not only would they have no one to help with their work and look after them in their old age if their daughters all married, but their lineage may be at risk of dying out. In a poor family, the expense of raising a baby was hard enough, but if it was a baby girl then the family may have thought that the expense would never be worth it. It's very sad but true that poor families with this attitude may have abandoned or killed their baby daughters to spare the trouble of raising them.. and in some parts of the world, this practice still carries on today. Before the 20th century, to bind a girl's feet would be to ensure that she'd marry into a good family and ensure her future. So although it may have been a horrendous thing for a child to go through, in that world it would have been a kindness. Even nuns running orphanages would make sure that the girls in their care had their feet bound. My Shoes Cost More Than Just My Childhood Conspicuous consumption is the act of appearing wealthy by displaying things that are expensive. The Chinese were masters of conspicuous consumption, and it showed in all the aspects of foot binding. One cannot deny that shoes for tiny feet are lovely. Each one a work of art, made and embroidered by the woman who would wear them. The final result of foot binding would be as varied as the women who owned them, and the shoes reflect that. Some are very short and pointed, some are longer with a little curl at the tip to hide a slightly squared specimen. Some are shallow, some are wide, some have hobnailed soles for walking and some are soft silk for bedtime. All were embroidered. Flowers were a design you could never go wrong with, but maybe the character meaning 'double happiness' would cheer you up? Some butterflies may help you walk more gracefully. If you truly have your heart set on being rich or being a mother, coins or children are never too blatant. A girl would have to sew several pairs of shoes to be part of her dowry, and at least one pair as a present for her mother-in-law. All through her life, the sewing would continue, and she'd embroider her changing wishes into the fabric using symbols such as the above. The result would be an elaborate, beautiful and expensive collection of footwear. The process of foot binding and care of the bound foot was at least as expensive as the shoes. Preparing the feet for binding would need ingredients such as urine, ground almonds, mulberry roots, tannin, frankincense, boiled monkey bones or even still-warm animal blood. Then you'd need alum or talc to powder the feet, yards of cotton or silk to wrap them in and new smaller shoes every few weeks. Poorer families would use black or navy blue cloth instead of the usual white bandages so staining wouldn't necessitate buying new material for every re-wrapping. It was also possible that the child would need more care to help her get around and medicines to deal with infection. Even after the first difficult years, bound feet needed regular care. They needed daily bathing, powdering and possibly medicating to prevent infection, perfumes to hide the smell of withered flesh, lots of cotton or silk to wrap them and those expensive shoes to cover them. Costly to make, clothe and maintain, my opinion is that bound feet may have not so much been an exercise in male restraint of females than of conspicuous consumption. Utilitarian stands for the human body were transformed into the delicate platform of a goddess. She did not just walk, she took lotus steps on feet like new moons. Foot Emancipation Opposition to foot binding had always been there, it's not just a modern concept. Many mothers couldn't bear to hurt their daughters, whatever society said. Sometimes it would be left off until the child was as old as 9, and the feet had to be broken in order to bind them. Often, a female relation would take the forming of the child's Lotuses into her own hands, although it's not impossible that a few girls managed to avoid foot binding completely. In 1645, the emperor, a Manchu who, like the rest of his people, did not find foot binding to be beautiful, managed to place a ban on it. It didn't last long though, his successor lifted it because he believed it was too much a part of culture to prevent. In 1911, it was finally outlawed for good. Championed by scholars and Western missionaries, anti-foot-binding mania swept the country. Women would be forced to unbind their feet, an act nearly as painful as binding them in the first place. Their feet were used to the support of bandages. An education campaign began to teach people that no other country bound feet, that foreigners would loose respect from the Chinese people if they continued and, in my opinion most importanly, that children would be much happier and healthier with natural feet. As foot emancipation societies spread, members pledging on entry that no child of theirs would have - or marry someone with - bound feet, 1000 years of Golden Lotuses ended. Now, it would hardly look like my essay if I didn't make a few snide comments on foot binding being similar to today's custom of cramming one's feet into high-heeled and pointed shoes. But I just can't see that many similarities. Very few modern shoes can compare to the artwork that is a bound foot shoe. No woman today could dare claim that her heels cause her nearly a quarter of the suffering that bound feet would have caused. That awful, enchanting condition of something truly unhealthy concealed by beauty may never be repeated on such a huge scale as it was during the years when foot binding was the fashion. Images all found on the web using Google and Yahoo's image search. None of them belong to me. -- ::BACK::