Super Tiny shoes for Grandma
A 90-year-old woman in Shanghai received a special New Year’s gift from her son and daughter-in-law – brand-new size 33 leather shoes.
The woman, surnamed Chen, was born in 1917, and during her youth, foot binding was still a social custom for women. So, Chen’s feet are very small.
Chen’s granddaughter recently celebrated her 22nd birthday, and her parents gave her a pair of custom-made shoes. Chen envied her granddaughter’s present, so the daughter-in-law started to seek a factory that made shoes small enough for Chen.
She found the Xiaohuayuan Shoe Factory in Shanghai, which took the order for Chen’s shoes.
By Sun Tzu on 05-01-2007
Comment by Heather
August 12th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
OMG… That’s horrible…
Comment by Dan
October 1st, 2007 at 8:59 pm
What the heck is that?
Comment by unknown
October 6th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
I do not think that this is a sence of torture or fashion. It was a cutsom/tradition that most women(young girl from the ages of 7 – 12 years of age.) in those times found to be honorable. They also found nothing wrong in taking place in this action for it was paced down threw generation to generation.
Comment by FLABBY
November 5th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
That is sooooooo nasty!!!! omg, i would never do that ever! #@^%$@
They had to break their toes and regrow them that way every other year in china.
Comment by Michels
February 4th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
i lol’d
Comment by addoi
February 14th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
acually that was the tradion in old china it would hurt . many youg girls
cried for a year if it hurt enough.
from a 8 year old girl
Comment by himynameisfred
February 22nd, 2008 at 8:56 am
Michels how can you “lol” at this. This is a horrible custom and if you had it done to yourself you would be in just as much pain. Basically, they turned their foot sideways unnaturally. However, it was neither torture nor fashion, it was merely a custom that they thought they needed to become married.
Comment by marianne
April 10th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
I looked up foot binding because I just finished a really good book titled Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, a story about the live long friendship of two Chinese girls in the 1800’s. The story tells all about foot binding, and how these two girls endured. I was amazed. Many young girls died from from this, blood infection. It was considered custom to bind the feet as tiny as 5-7 centimeters, to make a woman desirable. Tiny feet were hot back then.
Comment by Sultan_Azteca
April 12th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Yes. Foot binding was desirable to Chinese 150 years ago, as forehead flattening was a physically desirable feature to Mayans 1,000 years ago… and as surgically enhanced breasts and buttocks (with all cases of surgeries gone deadly wrong, body rejections to implants, and silicone spills years later) are physically desirable features nowadays in the Western culture, as well as Botox injections…
In the future when safer and less obtrusive options (or tastes) for beautification exist, our children will say “what were they thinking when doing that to their bodies???”. At the end, the problem is: beauty is in the eye of the beholder, … and their cultures…
Comment by bu
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:54 am
can they walk?
Comment by HeatherB
April 29th, 2008 at 10:19 am
“I do not think that this is a sence of torture or fashion. It was a cutsom/tradition that most women(young girl from the ages of 7 – 12 years of age.) in those times found to be honorable. They also found nothing wrong in taking place in this action for it was paced down threw generation to generation.”
Some people saw something wrong with it or they wouldn’t have outlawed it. It was just ONE MORE WAY to make women sexual objects and subserviant.
Comment by Sandra
May 22nd, 2008 at 9:20 am
I think that to draw too straight a line to modern western plastic surgery taints the justification of changing oneself for beauty. Although I personally have no need for plastic surgery. Foot binding brought in far more elements than those of just…beauty! Men would drink the water that was used to clean bound feet. Men would eat from the toes of a woman with bound feet. Chalk that up to a mere foot fettish if you please. Westerners could pick up a copy in the adult video store on the corner, along with two girls and a cup! But remember to park your car in the ‘other’ parking lot and slither your way in as to not be noticed by anyone who may know you! Sure, get implants and you may be sexually desirable! Chain them to the kitchen and you have your Chinese bound beauty. Chinese women were bound forcing them to stay at home ensuring that they were not mobile enough to leave the home and find outside love. It is the Chinese edited version of Misery. Men also found it desirable that bound feet made women clench every muscle from her waist down (forced Kegals) allowing men to dream that they are laying with a virgin. In the end, Western adults have a choice! I know I wouldn’t send my three year old in for implants!
Comment by Matsuri
June 2nd, 2008 at 3:38 am
Chinese foot binding.. the horror
Comment by nicole
June 3rd, 2008 at 7:30 pm
i think this tradition was very stupid because this DOES NOT
make a women more beautiful. They shouldnt go through all that pain to look “Beautiful” because everyone is beautiful in their own ways.!! no matter how small or how big your feet are. You are still beautiful no mater the difference!!!!
Comment by Puma
June 20th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Let me explain to the readers why footbinding is torture. First of all, a child’s toes are broken and folded underneath the feet (save the big toe, thankfully, which was needed for balance.) against her will and without any warning of the process or the pain. She thinks grandma is giving her a pedicure & massage, but surprise, it turns out to be the cruelest, most agonizing pain she has ever experienced as a 3-yr-old or will experience as adult woman!!(and that includes childbirth). Then her feet are each wrapped with a 10-foot x 2-inch silk cloth as tightly as possible without completing cutting off circulation (for fear of gangrene or blood poisoning). Every other day the bandages are removed, the feet are washed, and the toenails clipped to prevent ingrown toenails, and the bandages are wrapped once again even MORE tightly. This ritual continues for another two years. But wait! It gets even better! After 2 years the soles of the feet are broken in half and the feet are literally folded in two, (like a folding chair collasped together), such that the toes and heels touch each other in an inverted ^ shape. All this midst the ear-piercing screams, tears, and pleading of a 5-yr-old child to make the foul ritual stop. Then the feet are rebound and kept this way for months or years at a time. Only occasionally washing the feet to remove the stench of rotting flesh. All in the name of beauty & wealth! It goes on, but I’ll stop there to let you catch your breath.
Comment by Kim
July 31st, 2008 at 12:43 am
This is a way to torture women to be obedient to men. This way, women cannot run fast, therefore cannot run away. Women was looked down lower than men for many years and still do in many parts of the world.
Only stupid women would do this to their feet. This is torture to the first degree and should be evaluate for mental disorder. This foot look so deformed, it’s worst than arthiritis!!
Comment by Eva
May 4th, 2009 at 3:22 am
This is torture, its against the rights of women, i agree with Kim’s comment, it does stop the woman from running away, and yes, it’s worse than arthiritis. Chinese people are very notorious, they need to get a shrink and go to the rehab. We’ll just hope these people will burn to hell for their unmerciful practices
Comment by Louisa
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:43 am
These practices were for wealthy women and girls who were intended to marry into or become cocubines for well regarded men. There was no need for these females to stand or walk they had servants who did all the cooking and cleaning. These women were taught music and art. A tiny broken and warped foot was to a man an incredibly valuable sex organ. Many women were more valued because of this. Peasant families started breaking their more petite, comely and dainty daughters feet as a future payoff. The concubine was a commodity as surely as was a field of rice.