Foot Binding Isn’t All That

The result of a lot of work

Most four year olds just want to play with their toys, run around making as much noise as possible and maybe harass their parents after watching a commercial about the newest kind of McNugget. Getting their toenails cut down to nothing, and then having their toes broken isn’t really something on a kid’s priority list, but this is exactly what happens when it comes time for a girl to start beautifying her feet in 10th century China.

Basically, each toe gets ceremoniously broken, then a 10 foot long bandage is wrapped around the toes which are pulled as far back into the heel as possible. Sound fun?! Good, because its not over! These events would repeat themselves every 2 days with the bandages getting pulled in tighter and tighter. But it’s not all bad. This tradition typically happened in the winter when feet were numb with cold anyway.

This foot-binding trend continued for a thousand years (till the 20th century) and some older women are still seen with their undersized feet carefully bound and hidden away in tiny size 0 shoes that wouldn’t even fit over my big toe. Obviously, tiny pointy pixy feet that force their owners to shuffle around painfully on their heels (also known as the lotus gait) were quite popular. (I really want to know what kind of sadistic person thought of the idea, by the way)

Lotus shoes are no longer than 3 inches Photo: Harvard University

In fact, the Qing Dynasty has a few sex novels that describe almost 50 ways to erotically play with a lucky lady’s bound feet. Of course, the bound feet have to stay in the colorful pointy lotus blossom shoes, because underneath that pretty cloth shell is a stinky rotting foot that would pretty much ruin the moment. When exposed to fresh air I’m sure the foot would explode into a green cloud of foot fungus and stink (bound feet had crevices impossible to clean).

My feet are so damn big.  Size 9.5 would have been considered an abomination in China, I’m sure.

Nowadays high heels are the the modernized version of the pain-for-beauty concept when it comes to feet. High heels were originally designed for riding a horse (NOT to walk around), so the foot would angle forward and not fall out of the stirrup. You didnt WALK on the heel, you’d get carried around while wearing them…and rightfully so because walking on heels is a pain in the ass and everywhere else too, for that matter (but they sure do look good).