Chinese bound feet
Zhou Guizhen, who is 86-years-old, shows one of her bound feet where the bones in the four small toes were broken and forced underneath the foot over a period of time, at her home in Liuyi village in China’s southern Yunnan Province, February 2007. Villages in China where women with bound feet survive are increasingly rare but the millennium-old practice nevertheless took almost four decades to eradicate after it was initially banned in 1911. (AFP/File/Mark Ralston)
March 30th, 2007 at 9:27 am
I read a facsinating account in a novel written by Kathryn Harrison - not for the faint of heart because of what these poor souls endured. If you’re interested in learning more, the book is called “the Binding Chair”.
March 30th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
If I ever had the Yellow Fever before….I’m cured. :sick:
March 31st, 2007 at 12:53 pm
this is cool, i’m gonna try
March 31st, 2007 at 1:21 pm
ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww hasn’t that woman ever heard of plastic surgery. that can make you feet smaller.
April 4th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
OW it hurts
April 10th, 2007 at 9:10 am
stupid tradition. why don’t their men try it? this time their heads on a shoe!
April 26th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
That is truly the dumbest thing anyone can do. Thats like forcing yourself to be crippled and bound for a wheelchair. Hope they know how many people would do anything to be able to walk and these people take it for granted……..very sad.
May 17th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
I believe i heard that the tradition was to keep the wives from running away or because japanese men have/had a thing for tiny feet. But then, ive also heard that it’s not all that painful and disabling for those who still have their feet bound. And whoever mentioned the plastic surgery thing…C’mon, they didnt have that back then. And think, what about corsettes and other horrible fashion women have had to endure? Yeah, men really need to try fashion for once.
May 24th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
That looks so painful. Can you imagine what those women went through just to look attractive to their men? That is ridiculous.Yes, women have done some stupid vain things just to look a little better.Or what they think looks better, those feet are scary and ugly.
May 30th, 2007 at 7:46 am
The girls generally had their feet bound at the age of just six. If their mothers didn’t do it, the daughters couldn’t marry. Not so far off from genital mutilation, which still happens today. Barbaric.
January 9th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
HORRIFIC!!
June 6th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
I just want to point out that they had no choice when they were children. Having binded feet was a status symbol. They would grow up brainwashed by what they were taught and then do it to there children.
June 21st, 2008 at 12:41 am
1) Chinese custom… dating back from basically Biblical era (well over 1000 years ago… sorry charlie, no plastic surgery)
2) Parents started it when the kids weren’t even 5 years old… and I’m sure the woman in the picture was no different. And back then, kids didn’t say ‘no’ to their parents…
3) Mothers did it to their children because in their culture for many hundreds of years, women were more like property than human beings. If a woman wanted a husband, she had to bind her feet. Otherwise, she would be forced to remain unmarried (and thus, in the eyes of everyone, ‘worthless and better off dead’)
Best not judge until you know what you’re talking about *smiles*
November 22nd, 2008 at 12:03 am
Well! Back in the day the little girls had no choice because if they didn’t bound their feet they would not get married and that leaves them to be a slave or they would die of hunger.Plus that is the most stupd thing I ever heard those chinesse girls should of done something bout it.ARE NO.Sorry for the rude comments but yeah!