Bound Feet and Beauty

As the group look at a boot for bound feet one of the women relates how her great grandmother's feet were bound. Another of the women sings a song she learnt at school about a beautiful lady.

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[cheddarcheezy]

ok so apparently the king's fav concubine or his daughter has deformed feet or were natually super small. so it became that all royal ppl wanted tiny feet and rich ppl wanted tiny feet cause the royals had tiny feet. and the not so rich ppl made their daughters have small feet so that she''l be able to marry a rich guy which is really strange because asian women already have small feet......dude my grandmother have super super small feet makes me wonder

[jetfire737]

ok so apparently the king's fav concubine or his daughter has deformed feet or were natually super small. so it became that all royal ppl wanted tiny feet and rich ppl wanted tiny feet cause the royals had tiny feet. and the not so rich ppl made their daughters have small feet so that she''l be able to marry a rich guy which is really strange because asian women already have small feet......dude my grandmother have super super small feet makes me wonder

[rmmann1]

My problem is that the actual history isn't precise. The way I learned it, your explanation is just a partial one of a few possibilities. I wasn't aware of how truly brutal & deadly the practice was until reading "Snow Flower & The Secret Fan." The author Lisa See deserves a lot of credit for educating so many in her literary effort. We have two infant Chinese girls living here & I find it impossible to look at their tiny perfect feet and not be grateful for the changes time has brought.

[rmmann1]

I wish that the history was clear and true as to how and why binding came to be such a common practice. Thank you for posting this. The song about the beautiful woman with a 4 inch foot would have perhaps been more of a humorous song, as make up wasn't the norm. A 3 inch foot would be golden lotus, a 4 inch only silver. I am thinking the joke is that her feet were large, so she needed more than these to be considered attractive.