"When I was small, even at a very early age I knew I would have to bind my feet, because all the other women around me had them. All women did it. My mother explained that the smaller your feet are, the better a husband you could get, so at age five she began binding my feet. I could walk even at first when the binding was tight and painful. When the pain got to be too much I would just rest for a while. If I cried my mother would send me out to play to get my mind off it.
I could walk a long way back then. Now I can walk farther - up to 15 kilometers with no problem. But I don't work in the fields ... that is too difficult for me. I stay home and take care of the house. I wash and rebind my feet every five to ten days, and make all my own shoes. They are all very small, pointed at the toe and with a wooden heel for support. They can be any color you want, really, but in my village we like to wear red. You can only wear red if you are married, though. It takes me about five days now to make a pair of shoes, including doing the embroidery. I use the new ones for sleeping. See the little bugs and tiny flowers all around them?
I really don't know when women started binding their feet, but in my village it has been done a long, long time. Big, natural feet were just considered ugly ... that's why we bound. No man wants an ugly woman. It's a bit strange to see so many natural feet now - we're not accustomed to that. Small feet are attractive, but natural ones are OK, too."
"I had bound feet for many years before liberation in 1949, but when the Communists came to this area they started a movement to stop footbinding. They told us it was very bad for our health and that we should let our feet out, so I did ... slowly. At that time I was not yet married and had been binding since I was seven. The bones in my toes were already broken and completely folded under, so when I began to loosen the bindings my feet didn't expand much.
I was happy when we let our feet out, although it hurt for several months and took a long time to get used to. Once it was done it was so much easier to walk and more convenient all around. As a little girl I remember my mother telling me that footbinding was a tradition and if we didn't do it we'd be very unattractive. I didn't ask why, and I don't know what the purpose of it was other than to be beautiful. I guess it began a few dynasties ago ... we followed it without question.
When I first started binding it was very painful ... so much so that I couldn't sleep at night. I was still able to walk, though. Many girls suffered much more than I did. When I couldn't stand the pain any longer I would secretly loosen the bindings; when my mother found out she wouldn't get angry or scold me. She had bound feet, too, and understood how much it hurt. She would let me keep the bindings loose for a while, but I always had to wrap them up tightly again. I would wash and rebind my feet every day - it had to be done that often because the binding cloth gets caked with blood and pus.
My feet hurt for about one year, but then they were molded into the correct shape and I could walk well. My family did weaving, so I didn"t have to go out and work in the fields. I went out and walked around whenever I wanted to - to play or go buy things in the market. Here women could always go out of the house whenever they pleased.
Before the Communists came almost every woman bound her feet, rich and poor alike. There were only a few in this village who didn't. I think that is because they had very little or no Han blood in them - they were pure Bai minority people. But no one cared or treated them any differently because of their big feet."
"I've been binding since I was eight or nine years old. I don't bind tightly anymore, so my feet have expanded some compared to how they used to be. I bind now because the bones in my feet are already broken and without the wrappings I'd have no support. I couldn't walk if I didn't bind - besides, I'm used to it - I've been doing it for at least 65 years! It just feels more comfortable this way.
Many younger women let their feet out in the 1940s when the government was encouraging it strongly. They told us it was inconvenient and we shouldn't do it anymore. But if you were in your thirties or older and had been binding for years already, you just couldn't even consider doing it. It would have been even more inconvenient to let them out! Nowadays there is no advantage to having bound feet, but when I was young we did it so we would be beautiful. My mother told me that the smaller one's feet, the better, and that I had to bind so that when I reached marriage age it would be easy to find a husband. People felt that only women with small feet were attractive. But now I think the big feet girls have today are pretty, too.
Many girls used to have a lot of problems when they started to bind. If one's feet are bound badly then it will be very painful and you will have problems with bleeding and pus. This is especially true in the summertime. The pain can really be unbearable when the weather is hot. Mine were bound well and I never had severe problems. Not that it didn"t hurt at all - it DID! It took a good five years before the pain stopped, but I could still work in the house and go out to buy things or go to the market. I'd even go out into the fields and plant if I was needed. In these parts women didn't have to stay hidden in their homes. I walk around now without any problem ... I can even climb up the mountain if I want.
These plain black shoes that I wear now are convenient because I can have them made for me in the market. They are more popular than the old style, anyway. The traditional style had a narrow sole and came to a point at the toe where they were tipped up. I used to make all my own shoes, adorning them with all sorts of fine handwork. I loved to make them and spent so much time working on them that my eyes went bad. By the time I married I had 40 pairs to include in my dowry. During the days of my wedding celebration I tried to wear as many different pairs as possible.
I wash and rebind my feet every four to seven days. I don't mind unbinding and then binding again - since my feet no longer expand it's not painful. Then at night I have little covers that I put on over my bindings. I don"t wear special shoes at night - I like wearing the stockings instead. It used to be thought that the most ideal situation was to have a household with five tiny-footed women in it. That means one wife and four courtesans ... this was the best. The five women could also include maids or daughters ... but to have five women in your house all with golden lotuses was best. There was no other greater sign of success or position, so any family that could manage it financially would bind their daughters' feet. Everybody who lived in my village did it. If you lived outside the village and were very poor, though, young girls and women would be needed to work the fields every day, so they didn't bind.
If you didn't bind, everyone knew that you were extremely poor. Those girls might still get married, but they would always feel very self-conscious and embarrassed about their feet. They would always have to try to hide them. People felt that natural feet were ugly and a woman could only be beautiful if she had tiny bound feet. Even though there is no advantage to having bound feet now, I don't feel angry about it. I can still get around fine and my feet never cause me any problems. They were useful to me in firiding a good husband, but now that's not necessary any more. You don't have to bind your feet now to be beautiful."
"Footbinding is a custom that started some time ago ... I don't think anyone really knows when. There was no real reason for doing it - people just thought it was pretty, and men would choose or reject you as a prospective wife based on the size of your feet. There was a well-known saying, "If you don't bind, you don't marry" - but it wasn't really true. You could still find a husband even if you had big, natural feet. People just said that to help perpetuate the custom. They liked it and thought little feet were beautiful.
Where I come from it was customary that the old women in the village wrap the feet of the young girls, starting at the age of about six. That's when I started. The binding cloth was available only through these certain women. When my mother took me to an elderly neighbor to start binding she didn't explain much of anything about it to me. She said only that we all have to do it in order to marry. Everybody did do it, with very few exceptions. Those who didn't bind, well, I guess in general no one really paid much attenion to them. Sometimes they would get teased or beaten up in public. People would make jokes about them and tell them that they would never find a husband.
It was a big change for me to have my feet bound. Before I started binding I didn't even wear shoes - I just ran around barefoot. Afterwards I had to wrap my feet up tightly in the long strips of cloth, then stuff them into ever smaller shoes. I cried all the time about it, but my mother would command me to never loosen the bindings. My father, however, didn't listen to her. He felt sorry for me and would take the bindings off when mother couldn't see. I would also do it later on when I was older and out of her sight.
When I was twelve or thirteen I had to start working in the fields. I did everything that everyone else had to do, and I suffered a lot. Whenever it began to hurt too much I would take the bindings off when I worked. That happened frequently - you could say I was very lax about binding. Since I was constantly taking off the bindings my feet never reached standard size; they should be just three inches long. Most women in my village had feet smaller than mine. If your mother had tiny feet she would demand that yours be at least as small, but if she had longer ones she would not require more than that from her daughter. My mother's feet were not really small, so I managed to get away with letting mine out when they bothered me. She did not approve at all, though, and would get very angry.
You see, when a girl became eligible for marriage a matchmaker would find a man for whom the young girl might be suitable. Then she would arrange a foot viewing. The man would come to the girl's house just to look at her feet. If he thought they were too large he would turn her down. This was a very embarrassing affair, should it happen, since the whole village would surely hear about it. My mother was very concerned about the social implications of my slightly large feet. Another problem with my laxity was that my feet continued to hurt off and on until they stopped growing. It's a very slow process to break the toes under because I was so undisciplined about it. They have never really stopped bothering me. I don't feel comfortable with or without binding when I'm up on my feet.
I tried to let my feet out during the Republican era (1911-1949). The Nationalist authorities came to our village and said that women had to let their feet out and men had to cut off their queues. They took away all the binding cloth so we had nothing to wrap our feet in. Older women and those with very tiny feet were not required to comply, but I was. I was 24 or 25 at the time and thought it would be fine to let them out. After all, it was hard to walk on them and I was always in pain, but I could not adapt to unbound feet, either. Having no support just hurt too much, so I had no choice but to start binding again. My feet are not such a problem now because I don't work anymore. I still continue to bind to have support for walking. These shoes I have on were made by a relative who died and left them to me. I can't make my own shoes anymore - I'm just too old!"
"I am 81 years old now and have been binding my feet since I was five. I never considered letting my feet out, because if I did I wouldn't be able to walk. Some women decided to let theirs out when the Communists came and told us we should. By that time I was already so used to my feet the way they were. after so many years of binding, that it would have felt very unnatural to let them out.
When I started binding I was so young that I didn't ask any questions about it. I didn't understand anything about it, but just followed my mother's orders. She would have beat me had I done otherwise. I remember that I knew my feet should be made as tiny as possible - if they are big, it's just not pretty. I don't remember it hurting very much ... at such a young age my bones were still soft enough for them to be molded fairly easily. It never hurt much, really, even when my mother made me get up and walk around.
My family always had some type of small business in town, so I never worked in the fields. My job has always been to take care of the house, but I never hesitated to go out because of my feet. I can walk as far as I want to - a whole day, even. I don't worry about falling down; starting so young you adapt to it. You seen the shoes I'm wearing now? I've always worn ones like these - wide at the heel, tapering down to a point at the toe. I make them myself because no one makes them for sale any longer. When I was young and preparing to get married we had someone make them to include in my dowry ... I had 22 or more pairs in mine. A good dowry had to have at least that many.
The shoes in your dowry had to be many different colors, and each pair had a different meaning and were worn for different occasions. Younger women, after they married, could then wear red shoes. Older women should only wear blue or black shoes. White shoes are worn at funerals or during a period of mourning. It is very complex ... just for a wedding ceremony alone, which is several days long, a girl needed a number of primarily red-colored shoes. Of course they are embroidered with many diflerent colors, but they must be mostly red. On the wedding night, when the bride spends the first night at her husband's house, she must wear blue shoes.
I don't have any idea where this custom came from, but in my day everyone did it, no matter who you were. The purpose of it was twofold: first, a woman was not considered attractive unless she had bound feet. This was the only standard for determining beauty. No one wanted to marry a woman with big feet - that isn't attractive at all. Secondly, the smaller your feet, the better the husband you would get - maybe someone with money or position in society. It was true, too - it worked."
"When I was seventeen my parents decided it was time for me to prepare for marriage, so it was then that I started binding my feet. In my village girls could not enter the family ancestral temple unless their feet were bound, and before you marry you must enter not only your own family's temple, but your future husband's, to pay your respects to the ancestors. It was the order of the ancestors that women bind their feet. We could not ... would not dare to allow them to see us unless we first bound our feet.
When my mother told me it was time to start binding. she said that if I didn't do it then I couldn't go to the temple to make an offering. I knew that this meant the ancestors would then not look after me and my future family, so I started binding.
Before a girl began binding her feet she worked hard in the fields like everyone else. We are all poor in this area and all members of the family must work the crops. After I started binding, though, my work was limited to the house and courtyard. This is how it was done in every family, regardless of whether you were rich or poor.
I remember the first few weeks of binding being quite painful. The way we bind is to pull the toes to the underside of the foot only, so we don't bind real small. After a couple of weeks I adapted to it and could walk around quite well. Three years later, my parents found me a husband and I was married."
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