Green Crane spoke of the wondrousness of the bowed foot, saying that Shensi and Shansi models were best. The southern foot style was usually fragrant and soft, the northern style slender and small. The women from Ch’ang-an and San-yuan (in Shensi) had feet which combined both styles, for they were pointed, small, slender and trim, fragrant, soft, and perfectly proportioned. And they were truly rare to behold.
Green Crane had a beautiful concubine from Shensi, especially skilled in footbinding; he ordered her to supervise the binding of his maids and concubines. He also set up many regulations. A painting of the tenth-century consort Lovely Maiden, who was the first to bind her feet, was hung in the Lotus Cultivation Room. (This room was used exclusively for binding the feet of young girls.) A small whip was placed beside the painting, signifying that those who disobeyed would be punished. There were pictures on the walls of tiny-footed women singing and dancing. There were also three chests inside the room filled with bowed shoes, silk stockings, binding cloths, alum powder, various fragrances, scissors, cotton, medicine, and needles. A special footbinding chair was constructed so that when a girl sat on it her forearms were fastened immovably on either side. However, she could still move the part of her arms above the elbows in order to wipe away tears. There was a footstool in front of the chair to facilitate her placing both feet on it to have them bound. The day a girl’s feet were bound, Green Crane’s main wife sat on the chair in the room which was considered to be in the most honored position. The Shensi concubine stood to one side, and she and the wife led the young girls whose feet were to be bound to worship Lovely Maiden. The girls were ordered to kneel and say this prayer:
I, so and so, begin to bind my feet on this day. May Your Ladyship protect me and lessen my pain and assist me in getting three-inch golden lotuses as quickly as possible. May I soon secure the love of a husband. Your Ladyship is most kind and compassionate; please have mercy on me.
After praying, they knelt on the ground and wept. They brought their hands together and bowed four times to the wife, who ordered them to bow likewise to the Shensi concubine. Then the wife instructed the young girls: “Do everything which your older sister wants you to do. Accept the binding gracefully; be neither lazy nor neglectful.” Then she gave the whip to the Shensi concubine, who informed them: “By the order of our mistress, I am going to bind your feet. Don’t be afraid. If anyone stealthily loosens the sleeping shoes or secretly tears off the stitches on the binding, I’ll not forgive her.” She ordered the girls to kneel down and take off their upper garments, and she whipped each one three times, warning them that they would be whipped this way again if they did not strive to be good. Each girl put a pair of binding cloths prepared beforehand on a plate, and in fixed sequence kneeled and offered the plate to the Shensi concubine, saying: “Older sister’s commands will not be disobeyed; younger sister will endure pain and accept the binding.” The concubine gave each girl a silk embroidered handkerchief, to be used for wiping away tears.
The girls accepted the handkerchiefs and bowed in gratitude. They were then ordered to sit on the footbinding chair, one by one, removing shoes and socks by themselves. There was a red wooden box in front of the chair, filled with clear water. The concubine first washed the girl’s feet, paying especial attention to the plantars, which would become creased later from the binding. After the washing, the girl’s forearms were bound to the chair, and one foot was pressed down on the footstool. Both needle and scissors were used. The girl’s pretty face became lifeless, and she wept bitterly and cried aloud until she lost her voice, but she couldn’t move an inch. Her feet were then tightly bound, with fragrant powder generously sprinkled first on all the creases and then between the layers of the binding cloth. The footbinding was soon completed. The feet were pointed and curved upwards, with a pleasant fragrance striking the nostrils. Green Crane was often present to enjoy the scene. He would say to others: “Everytime I see a girl suffering the pain of footbinding, I think of the future when the lotuses will be placed on my shoulders or held in my palms, and my desire overflows and becomes uncontrollable.” This story dates back twenty years.
Chapter Eight
The Tiny Foot in Truth and Fiction
There are aged Chinese gentlemen today who still consider bound feet more attractive than natural ones, but they are usually reticent on the subject, hesitant to express opinions which seem inconsonant with the present age. They may also be embarrassed to try to justify footbinding to an unsympathetic and hostile Western audience. The desire of the Chinese to conceal the custom from curious but condescending eyes is illustrated by the following incident, which took place in Paris about 1936. A bound-foot Chinese woman took her two children to France about that time and tried to earn a livelihood by charging Parisians one franc each to look at her golden lotuses. She did this on public street corners and had her children collect the contributions. We are not informed as to how much money she made, but overseas Chinese in Paris became indignant and protested to the Chinese Consulate that her behavior was an affront to national honor. The lady was consequently expelled from France and sent back to China.
The tiny foot was a popular theme in poetry, fiction, and essay as late as the first third of the twentieth century. The lotus enthusiast generally avoided foreign confrontation, but presented an eloquent defense of footbinding to the domestic audience:
There are many good points about tiny feet, but I will talk only about the best ones. A tiny foot is proof of feminine goodness. Women who don’t bind their feet look like men, for the tiny foot serves to show the differentiation. It is also an instrument for secretly conveying love feelings. The tiny foot is soft and, when rubbed, leads to great excitement. If it is touched under the coverlet, love feelings of the woman are immediately aroused. The graceful walk gives the beholder a mixed feeling of compassion and pity. Natural feet are heavy and ponderous as they get into bed, but tiny feet lightly steal under the coverlets. The large-footed woman is careless about adornment, but the tiny-footed frequently wash and apply a variety of perfumed fragrances, enchanting all who come into their presence. The tiny shoe is inexpensive and uses much less material, while the large foot by way of contrast is called a lotus boat. The really tiny foot is easy to walk on, but the large tiny foot is painful and inconvenient. The natural foot looks much less aesthetic in walking. Everyone welcomes the tiny foot, regarding its smallness as precious. Men formerly so craved it that its possessor achieved harmonious matrimony. Because of its diminutiveness, it gives rise to a variety of sensual pleasures and love feelings.
Literary references usually depicted the tiny-footed as demure and yielding. But an occasional vixen reminded the reader that the Chinese woman, while perhaps preserving a subservient social image, often ruled the family with a firm hand. There was one story, for instance, of a tiny-footed but hot-tempered Szechwanese who tyrannized her timid spouse. If he returned home at night even slightly late, he had to kneel before her as punishment. She would box his ears, slap his face, and in general humiliate him. On one occasion, the husband was drinking wine with friends and did not return home until well after midnight. The maid servant let him in, and he furtively entered, looking uneasily from side to side. Suddenly he encountered his wife, who had removed the bindings and was washing her feet in a basin. He thanked the Buddhist god Amida under his breath, for he knew that she could not possibly strike him while in this pose.