Quotes About Bound Feet

My grandmother died in childbirth, and my great-aunt lived with us. She had bound feet. She never knew how to read or write.

Foot-binding is said to have been inspired by a tenth-century court dancer named Yao Niang who bound her feet into the shape of a new moon. She entranced Emperor Li Yu by dancing on her toes inside a six-foot golden lotus festooned with ribbons and precious stones.

But her greatest assets were her bound feet, called in Chinese "three-inch golden lilies" (san-tsun-gin-lian). This meant she walked "like a tender young willow shoot in a spring breeze," as Chinese connoisseurs of women traditionally put it. The sight of a woman teetering on bound feet was supposed to have an erotic effect on men, partly because her vulnerability induced a feeling of protectiveness in the onlooker.

And one of the interesting things about bound feet is that they never age.

And often it would be a woman who was in her 70s or 80s who would win the beauty contest, because bound feet never age.

And often it would be a woman who was in her 70s or 80s who would win the beauty contest, because bound feet never age.