In China, young girls’ feet were bound tightly in an ancient practice to achieve “lotus feet,”
Thursday, 13 Mar 2025
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An x-ray for those who have morbid curiosity like me. Source: Wikipedia
Still cannot believe how absurd this entire concept was.
In case it’s not obvious, it’s not just “binding tightly”. They had to break the bones in the foot to make the toes and front foot bend under the rest. So they broke the bones in the foot, wrapped it under the foot, then bound it tightly to make it heal like this…
It’s crazy how many cultures throughout history have been like “Look at our standards of beauty” and it’s literally just body-horror
This is talked about briefly in my favourite book, Wild Swans by Jung Chang. It’s the true story of three generations of women in China going from her grandmother who is concubine to a warlord, her mother who was prominent in the Communist party then fell foul of Mao during the cultural revolution and then herself growing up in the cultural revolution. She explains a bit why it was done and the long term effects on her grandmother. Would highly recommend it, it’s a great read.
Officially banned in 1912, permanently deformed the feet of tens of millions of young Chinese girls.
apparently we had an aunty (not a relative) who once visited our home when I was young and upon seeing that my feet were kind of big had told my parents may times to tie my feet tightly to stop them from growing.
Imagine the pain
Poor Girls.
Horrific cultural practice
Shen Yun: “Witness the beauty of China before communism!”
I read a book about foot binding when I was in college and it still makes me wince in pain when I see bound feet. I remember reading that they would have to break the bones of the foot repeatedly.
It was a sign of wealth and class that showed that you didn’t need to work. Most girls and women couldn’t do this.
It symbolizes a future dowry for a woman who will never be able to leave on her own. Parents trying to guarantee themselves payout for raising a female child as an object of fetish.
Lotus feet sounds like it should be graceful and beautiful… this just straight up looks like a hoof to me
I remember seeing a post (idr if it was about a book) about a Chinese American girl showing her Chinese grandma her ballet slippers. Her grandma lost it, broke down crying and yelled at her parents. “WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO MY GRANDBABY?” Poor grandma was traumatized and had lotus feet. She thought the ribbons on the ballet slippers were being used to bind her granddaughter’s feet too. That’s when the girl learned about lotus feet.
ETA: It’s a short story called Ribbons by Laurence Yep. Idk if I got the details right.
We have a horror movie (aptly called Feng Shui) in our country and the ghost is someone with lotus feet. You know it’s her coming because of the scary sound her feet makes hahahah
Look up Steven Tyler’s feet from Aerosmith. What years of wearing improperly fitting shoes will do to a person.
Jesus Christ!
They weren’t just “bound tightly”, they were pulverized.
Aggressive climbing shoes be like :
My family are Hakka Chinese and they were one of only a few groups who didn’t practise it – the women were working in the fields with the men.
I’ll never understand how “disfigured pig-feet” became a sought after standard of beauty.
Have you seen what consistently wearing high heels do to the feet? Deformation of the toes and shortening of the achillies tendon, hammer toes and pressure point callouses. All for an esthetic?
Gross
Can we agree as a species to stop body mutilation please?
This is not even attractive lmao
What’s worse is girls were beaten and publicly shamed if they didn’t get their feet bound before it was banned. But after the practice was banned, anyone with bound feet would be beaten and shamed again for having “participated”.