Foot binding

 

Foot binding

 

When Agudengba was in Myanmar, he met Fang Shidi, a horse dealer, and they had a pleasant conversation along the way. Because there is a businessman who wants to purchase horses from a certain place, and he wants to deliver these horses to the businessman as soon as possible. When Fang Shidi said goodbye to Agudengba and Azhuo, he gave Agudengba a mysterious small suitcase. In this small box were Fang Shidi's previous collections, which were all folk handicrafts.

Fang Shidi said to Agudengba: Every item collected in the small suitcase has a story. You are a wise man and you can tell all kinds of stories to your friends.

On the night after Fang Shidi said his official farewell, Agudenba, Adhuo, Dawa, Chu Sanxing and Xiang Qima drank tea and talked about the stories in the mysterious suitcase.

Agudengba took out the pair of exquisite embroidered bow shoes from the box and said with a smile:

Let me start with this pair of exquisite embroidered bow shoes.

Foot binding is a bad custom in ancient China. It involves wrapping a woman's feet tightly with cloth to reduce their deformity. Generally, women begin to bind their feet until their adult bones are set, and then the cloth is untied. There are also those who have their feet bound for life.

Chinese girls usually have their feet bound from the age of four or five. The process begins by choosing an auspicious day in the lunar calendar. Next prayers and offerings are made to the goddess Little Feet; the other is the Buddhist Guanyin, a bodhisattva or enlightened being believed to protect women in general. After everything is ready, it is done by the older woman in the family or a professional foot binder.

The big toe points forward and the four little toes are bent under the foot. In this position, the feet are tightly bound with long strips of cloth, which limits future growth and creates a pronounced arch in the foot.

A month later, the feet were released, the skin ulcers were treated, and the feet were back to normal. The restraints are then loosened and re-tightened once a month until the girl reaches her teens. It is not uncommon for one or more toes to be missing or for the foot to become infected or gangrene. Even into adulthood, the woman continued to wrap her deformed feet in straps, always wearing them in public and in the shower.

The most beautiful little feet are called "three-inch golden lotus". What does the "Three-Inch Golden Lotus" look like? How big is the "Three-Inch Golden Lotus"? Can I still walk after wearing "Three-Inch Golden Lotus" embroidered bow shoes? Are deformed feet really beautiful?

Agudengba smiled and said: Why did the ancient Chinese prefer embroidered bow shoes? Women in ancient times were proud of their small feet because their feet were more important than their breasts. Even if they touched their breasts, they could not touch their feet. The bad habit of foot binding has left hundreds of millions of Chinese girls with disabled feet and deformed bones, making them unbearable to look at. The strange thing is that even when those women with small feet grow old, they do not regret their decision to bind their feet. In the Qing Dynasty, women’s feet were prohibited from binding. Why did women still have to bind their feet? You want to know the answer, let me tell you slowly.

Agudengba sang a song called "Foot Binding":

 

Foot binding is a bad custom in ancient China.

Foot binding is a shame in Chinese customs.

Understand the history of foot binding in ancient China,

It was a harrowing scene.

 

Dirty literati praise the three-inch golden lotus,

Shameless men are still obsessed with small feet,

Historians have always praised emperors.

But it concealed the cruel truth of this period.

 

Long, smelly footcloths are a sin,

The filth of history is always wrapped in lies,

Foot binding makes human nature distorted and makes it difficult to move.

This is a shame in the history of Chinese civilization.