unbelievable, isn’t it?
there is a really good short story called “A Visit to the Footbinder”–can’t remember the author’s name and i’ve lost my copy. it’s told from the point of view of a little girl, age 5 or 6, who doesn’t know what is about to happen to her.
and you can see a picture of the unwrapped bound feet of an old woman in The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets.
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What’s the story on the ancient Chinese custom of binding women’s feet? (23-Oct-1998)
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thepoet - Was the story you mentioned “A visit from the footbinder” by Emily Prager? A friend of mine has a book with that story in it, and the title caught my eye since I’ve read Emily Prager’s novel “Clea and Zeus divorce”.
Betty Bao Lord also wrote a novel called Spring Moon, that covered this issue. I read it a long time ago.
This caught my eye because I saw a woman with bound feet a week or so ago here in Shanghai. Actually, it might have been the first time I’ve seen a woman with bound feet here. It is really rare. For one, they are old, second, Shanghai was a progressive city and stopped the practice earlier than most places, and third, it’s hard for people with bound feet to walk much.
When you do see someone, it’s almost always with a cane or people supporting either arm.
For some reason, the city of Kunming, captal of Yunnan province, has/had large number of women with bound feet. Maybe because so many wealthy Chinese moved there during WW2, and it was the wealthy that practiced foot binding??? I saw dozens travelling through there in the late 80’s. Even though I speak fluent Chinese, I never spoke with them. Don’t know, I was curious but thought that would have been akin to going up to a stranger and saying “I heard you were raped, can I ask you about it?”