Adam,

"Bound feet" is also known as "3 Inches Golden Lotus Feet"， refers to the popular or standard size: 3"

Hong Kong's TVB recently aired a story about "Last Village of Bound Feet Ladies in Yunnan" in its program "On the Road" season 3 (in Cantonese language). It is the second story/video, hosted by Angie Chiu.

http://jade.tvb.com/special/ontheroad3/index.html

The founder of the blog seems to find these pictures cool in someway. I don´t find it cool at all, Just a tragic episode in chinese history.

She doesn't look old enough to have bound feet, a practice that became unpopular during 1920's and 30's. Even most 80 year olds don't have bound feet.

There's actually not a lot of good sources on footbinding, just a lot of sensationalist crap in both English and Chinese.

The one book I would highly recommend however is Dorothy Ko's latest Every Step a Lotus.

Footbinding may have died out in the cities in the 30s, but in the countryside it took a bit longer. I would imagine that even in the early 50s some people out in the boonies were binding feet.

Whatever. I first saw these photos in 2007 when they were posted on the BBS Taitaibang; the post was entitled 三寸金莲. Where they actually originated was not explained. Most women with bound feet are extremely shy about them--they are a nexus of shame and sexuality. Somehow I do not think the women who allowed her feet to be photographed next to a pack of Hongtashan did not expect to used in such a crass manner.

YXS

The 5th photo only shows an empty shoe next to the pack of Hongtashan, and it's not one of the red shoes worn by the old woman in the previous 3 photos.
Footbinding lasted for over 1000 years in China. Indeed one could call the founder of this exotic erotic tradition, Song dynasty prince Li Yu, the original "Chinabounder"

Looks NSFW or particularly disgusting.

Okay, but shouldn't the pictures be after the jump, instead of before, with an adequate warning? It really is disgusting how the woman's feet are cleft into two parts; it's reminescent of an unhealed machete wound.

Great!

@Richard, you have such good taste.

Why not show some pictures of what eunuchs look like?

It seems only the bizarre, the cruel, and the negative aspects of Chinese culture get aired here.

Sounds like a biased approach to China.

link

FTA: Zhou Guizhen who is 86 years old, shows one of her bound feet where the bones in the four small toes were broken and forced underneath the foot over a period of time, at her home in Liuyi village in China’s southern Yunnan Province, 23 February 2007.

@ fred

Why so sensitive? I didn't see this post as "porn" or "exploitation." While I'm sure this woman did not know that her photos would be posted here, but this is a reality. Sometimes reality isn't always pretty and foot binding is a very real part of Chinese history.

These things shouldn't be avoided, much less seen as being "biased" to China. I suppose you'd rather there be photos of happy, rosy-faced children hopping around saying "Go Olympics! Go China!". 虚伪...

I'm pretty sure these photos are from Agence France Presse. We use their Image Forum website at work, and I've seen these photos on that site previously.

foot binding back in the day was a form of erotism. where the female was a dainty flower to be easily moved by men. her feet represented a cruel form of sado-masochism in which she was essentially a slave and beautifl doll for the male to play with when married. girls as young as 3-4 yrs were arranged to be wed by the age of around 12-15 yrs. they typically had the mother and grandmother hold her down as they used a large board and hammer to break the foot and shape it into a small crevice of a shoe. the bound foot eventually grew into this shape over the years. typically they had to be rebroken over and over again to keep its shape. this was essentially a gift to the husband who also held onto several concubines as his playthings. his wife and concubines were his dolls for him to play with anytime he wanted.

Does anyone get turned on by those feet?

Re Yan Xishan's response to Bill: I was in a village in the west of Shanxi seven or eight years ago when a doctor, who had temporarily adopted me in a motherly sort of way because I was the only foreigner in a large group of visitors, suddenly nudged me and whispered: "look at her feet!" So I looked at the old woman's feet and they were tiny. I was amazed that someone could still be suffering the results of a tradition I thought had died out beore this woman was old enough to have her feet bound. And I was also amazed that this should have continued so long in the countryside where surely women had to be mobile enough to do all the extra hard work that women are usually expected to do. But there they were - her tiny feet.

One of the things that strikes me (again) about this set of pictures is how closely this woman's naked foot mirrors the shape of shoes that women East and West still willingly torture themselves with.

It's Liuyi Village, in Tonghai, Yunnan. I passed by it on the road, not far from the city central.