"I was born in Fujian Province where every woman bound her feet. I always understood very clearly that it was something every girl just had to do. The thought of not binding never occurred to me...the only question was how small I would make my feet. When I was three years old I remember noticing my aunt's feet for the first time. They were very, very small - just two and a half inches long. She wore red binding cloth and white shoes. I was so enchanted by the beauty of that sight that I decided I wanted to make my feet look just like that.
Before I started to bind my mother told me that if I wanted to have a good life I had to bind very tightly to make my feet especially small. We were not rich - my father was a low ranking sailor on a trade ship...but I knew that if my feet were very small I would be able to have a servant one day. If a girl's family didn't have status, but she had three-inch or smaller feet, then she might be able to become an attendant in a lady's chamber. Then she might even get a chance to be married to a wealthy man or become a concubine. Only then could she have a maid of her own. But if I didn't bind tightly enough and my feet were larger than three inches, then I'd have to become a servant outside the lady's chamber and house, which meant a lot of hard manual labor and no opportunity to better my life. I wanted to have a maid and a good reputation, so I decided to bind very small.
I was nine when my mother started binding my feet. I never fought with her about it. I was anxious and excited about it, always measuring my progress against my aunt's feet. In three years my feet finally reached two and a half inches. My mother was so proud of me that she bought me a little ankle bracelet that jingled when I walked. It's unusual to do it within such a short period of time, but I was getting older and was determined to have especially beautiful feet. I started a little late, but that didn't matter. Regardless of when you start, in the end the size of your feet is determined only by how tightly you bind. The most beautiful feet are those that are very small and straight. You don"t want them to be curved or to turn outward. In the old days, three-inch golden lotuses were considered the most beautiful, but my own opinion is that two inches is even more beautiful! In the village where I grew up there are many women with feet even smaller than mine.
Binding is very painful in the beginning and there is nothing you can do to find relief. But I never cried about it. If you want to have small feet you have to suffer. During the first few years when you are binding the tightest, your feet bleed. They become rotten and useless. I often had no strength and couldn't do much of anything, so I didn't work or walk around. When I was 12 I started to be able to walk without assistance. It was still painful, though. After about 20 years the pain went away completely. Now I walk and pull my cart to and from the temple where I sell incense, but otherwise I don't go anywhere alone. I don't have very good balance. One time, after I came to Taiwan, I got on a bus with my baby tied to my back. I wasn't able to get a secure hold on a seat back before the bus took off and I fell down. I never went out alone after that.
I wash and rebind my feet every night before I go to bed. Then I put on my sleeping shoes which are like little pouches that I slip over the bindings and tie above the ankle. During the day I always wear the same type of shoes that I'm wearing now, red with flowers embroidered on them. I make them all myself, just the way my cousins taught me when I was little. You can't buy them anywhere. Sometimes a Japanese tourist will see me at the temple and ask to buy my shoes, so once in a while I sell a pair to make a little money. When I was young I didn't work. I just stayed home and did embroidery all day. After my father married me to a sailor I had to do all the housework and take care of my children. My husband bought me a servant who helped me for a few years before we left for Taiwan in 1944. Then I had to do everything alone - take care of my eight children and make money, too.
Even though working on my feet has not been easy, I could never consider letting them out. They are broken in three places in order to be this small, and I must have the binding cloth for support. Without it I could not stand, and the pain of the foot expanding would be too much. I remember hearing about the movement to stop binding, and later on there were a few who refused to bind...but I just couldn't ever let mine out. I have no idea when or why this custom began - I guess it was back in ancient times. We did it because you had to. You would get beaten by your parents if you didn't, because later you would never find a man to marry. What would your parents do with you then? Did binding my feet give me a better life?...(There was a long silence before Sun-niang hung her head and responded so quietly her words could hardly be heard)...I have a good life."
"I don't know when or where the custom of footbinding began - it must have been a few centuries ago. It was originally a custom practiced by the Bai (minority) people and was later adopted by the Han. Everyone used to bind, without question. In my village there was not even a single woman with natural feet. It was a must.....without bound feet a girl would simply never find a husband.
I remember when my mother started binding my feet - I was about ten years old. She told me I had to do it or I could never get married, so of course I had no choice. It was so painful that I couldn't walk or sleep at night. When I would cry because the pain was too much, my mother would undo the bindings and let me soak my feet in cool water. When they'd start to feel better I would always have to bind them up again, though. After about three years my feet stopped growing and didn't hurt any more. Even when I was just starting to bind I had to go out and work in the fields. I had to do everything, just as before - carrying night soil (human waste) to fertilize the vegetables, harvest the crops, and hike up the mountain to cut firewood.
In those days, the smaller your feet, the better, so I'd wash my feet and rebind very tightly. At night I had to wear special shoes to bed so my feet wouldn't expand. Now I have larger feet. After I got married I slowly loosened the wrappings each time I washed, and they have expanded a lot as the result. I never let them out completely, though, because I didn't want them to be big. I still make all my own shoes in the style we've always worn - with the toes tipped up. When I got married I had at least thirty pairs in my dowry. We weren't rich - some women had 50 pairs or more! But still I had several pairs of red shoes to wear for the wedding and other appropriate colors to wear on other occassions. Women just shouldn't have big feet, and that's that. This is the reason why we bound our feet."
"I started binding when I was fourteen, a typical age to begin. I had to let them out once after liberation, though. so that's why my feet aren't so small anymore. They used to be very tiny! You see, when the Communists came to our village in the early 1950s they told everyone to unbind their feet. Women were afraid to do it, so there was no response to the order. I was the leader of the village women's association, and since I was the most active member and had quite tiny feet, they felt it was essential for me to set an example for the other women. The authorities came to my house and forced me to unwrap my feet. They took away all my binding cloth, too, so I couldn't rebind them. Once it was announced to the village that I had unbound, they implemented a policy where if a woman refused to stop binding her feet the family would have to pay a large penalty in cash, livestock and goods. Most people were afraid and couldn't afford to pay such fines, so they had no choice but to let their feet out.
This was a very embarrassing experience for me. I was very, very unhappy about having to let my feet out. I was a dancer and knew that I couldn't walk, not to mention dance, if my feet were let out. After I removed the bindings it immediately became excruciatingly painful - it was terrible! I had such a hard time trying to walk. I had to crawl on my hands and knees, and it was impossible for me to resume my daily activities. After two years I had to begin binding again, regardless of what was happening in society. It was just too painful. The day my mother started binding my feet, she told me that it had to be done in order for me to find a husband. I knew that already because every woman I ever saw had bound feet. Before the Communists came I never even heard of a woman not having bound feet. Mother also explained to me that the smaller a girl's feet are, the better a husband she will get. Ideally, you want the feet to be very short - at most three inches - and very narrow. My feet used to be narrow, even at the heel, but they got bigger after I let them out.
It is extremely painful to bind, and at first it makes you sick ... changing the color of your skin all over your body, even on your face. You don't feel like eating for quite some time and you are unable to walk at all - I had to wait at least a year before my toes were broken under and the arch was pushed up at least two inches. Then I could begin to walk a little without so much pain. Now, of course, I can walk a long way without any problem at all. Like when we met today - I was on my way to the park for a stroll. I didn't work when I was young...my grandparents worked in the fields and my parents were both teachers. Being the oldest of five children, my responsibility was to take care of the house and my younger brothers and sisters. There was not much you could do to relieve the pain in the beginning except to secretly loosen the binding cloths. I would do this, but eventually the elders would find out, wrap them up again even tighter, then stitch the cloth together so I couldn't loosen it again.
If I have a daughter with tiny feet like mine, and you have a daughter with big feet like yours, then your daughter is not as good as mine. That's the way we used to think! One's status in society depended upon the size of your feet. The smaller, the better. I remember when I was 16 and saw my aunt's feet for the first time. I was completely amazed at how tiny they were! I thought they were exquisitely beautiful. She wore red binding cloth and blue shoes that were embroidered with multi-colored flowers and figures. I was so impressed that I decided to begin binding my feet even more tightly so they would become as tiny and beautiful as hers. She told me that if I succeeded in making my feet as small as hers she would let me have my choice of shoes from her collection. She had a huge cabinet full of magnificent tiny shoes, all in brilliant colors. Well, I did succeed, and she let me pick as many pairs as I wanted. I was so excited! I had just begun to perform traditional dances with the women's association, and we were performing before the entire village, and I was ecstatic to have such exquisite shoes to perform in.
I normally wear two pairs of shoes over my bindings and a pair of stockings. Both pairs of shoes are made of fabric and are decorated with embroidery. If it is rainy or muddy I have a pair of black leather lace-ups that I slip on over the others to protect them. At night I just wear my undershoes over the bindings. They are my sleeping shoes and can be any color ... I like mine to be red. By the time I got married at nineteen I had a big cabinet full of shoes, all handmade and intricately decorated. The practice of footbinding started many dynasties ago and has continued all this time until my generation. It stopped in my village around 1951 or so. We still have women in their sixties who have tiny feet. I really didn't like having to let mine out, but now I'm glad the government has stopped this custom. It is very hard on someone to do this to their feet!"
"I've been binding my feet since I was nine years old. Many girls started between the ages of six and eight, but the elders in my family thought I should wait until I was more mature. I thought about letting my feet out once, just after we came to Taiwan in 1947. There were bound-footed women here, too, but their feet were a different shape. The Japanese government had been encouraging all women in Taiwan to let their feet out, saying it was bad for our health and didn"t look good to the rest of the world. There was a lot of social pressure to do it and I wanted to fit in, so one day I decided to take my bindings off. The pain was unbearable! My feet began to expand and I had no support without the bindings or shoes. I couldn't walk at all ... the only thing I could do was crawl around on my hands and knees! I tried, but I just couldn't leave them that way. After a few days I gave up and started binding again.
Where I come from almost every woman had bound feet. Only the poorest of the poor didn't bind, and even then it was very rare. If a woman didn't have bound feet she was not considered a lady and would never be able to find a husband. Without bound feet, a woman's fate was sealed - she could only spend the rest of her life as a servant. I don't recall my life changing much after I started binding. I suppose I went through a time of it being painful, but it was so long ago I don't remember. I never worked or went out of the house. I just stayed at home, sang songs and danced with my sisters, and worked endlessly on embroidery. Girls didn't go to school ... it was just not considered right.
I have always spent a lot of time doing embroidery. When I was young I was constantly working on a new pair of shoes to prepare for my wedding dowry. The shoes were very important, and I had fifteen pairs. The shape of the feet was not such a big concern ... there were no requirements, they just had to be small. The most important thing was a lady's shoes. We had to pay close attention to making them because the quality of the embroidery is what gives a woman distinction. No one really knows when this custom started. It has gone on for a long time. We did it because having bound feet meant you didn't have to work. Things are different now, though."
"I was the oldest of twelve children - three boys and nine girls - but I am the only one who has bound feet. Although my mother had bound feet, she didn't want any of us to bind because we were very poor. She said we were all needed to work. My grandmother, however, disagreed. Being the first born, I was grandmother's favorite and she really spoiled me. She insisted that I bind my feet. She said that with normal feet I didn't have a chance at finding a good husband, and I would surely end up living my life as a servant, doing manual labor. She didn't want me to have a hard life; she wanted me to enjoy the opportunities that came with small feet, to marry and have a chance at a better life. In the end, she got her way.
When I was ten years old. grandmother started to bind my feet. She comforted me by saying that I wouldn't have to work if I bound my feet, and that I wouldn't have to get dirty like the others. I felt very fortunate. During the first few years, when binding is the most painful, grandmother was as gentle as she could be. She tightened the bindings only a little bit each time, and gradually fit them into the ever smaller shoes she made for me. With her love and care, those first years of binding went rather easily. It was painful, but not a struggle. I could still walk, and I didn't have to work in the fields like my siblings. Instead I stayed home and did work around the house. I also had to make shoes to wear and to prepare for my dowry. Grandmother made several pairs for me, too ... a bride must have shoes and binding cloth in her dowry.
Every day I wash and rebind my feet. It doesn't take long - I clip my toenails so they aren't uncomfortable, trim away dead skin and apply alum powder. At night I change into a clean pair of shoes to sleep in. I have never had any problems with my feet. I can walk all day long on them and not feel any pain. I could never let them out, though - I've never even considered it. If I took the bindings off and left them off, I wouldn't be able to walk at all.
In my village almost every woman bound her feet. Besides my family there was only one other with natural-footed girls. Binding was done by women who didn't want to work. If you were not needed to work in the fields, you bound. Because of my small feet my life has been good. I married a sailor and came to Taiwan in 1948. As for my sisters - some were promised in marriage to very poor families before they were born, and some were taken as second wives by men who were widowers. The others became servants."
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