Carmine Jade felt giddy; she reclined, extending her feet. Shih-chung, who was very strong, placed her foot in his palm, where it fitted perfectly. He pressed the foot with his fingers, causing her to cry out involuntarily.
“You press my foot till it hurts, without feeling tenderly towards me,” complained Carmine Jade, struggling to free herself . . .
A pair of tiny feet, encased in red sleeping slippers, was outlined by the bedcovers. Her legs were crossed and entangled under a single coverlet, with the curve of her thighs enticingly revealed. Shih-chung was amazed that her thighs were so voluptuous and large. He stared at them thinking: “How hard it must be for tiny feet to support those thighs!” He couldn’t help feeling compassion for her lower extremities. Compressing the feet in order to thicken the thighs must have been the invention of a genius. And of course the inventor must have been a woman. . . .
She felt at ease with him and, without thinking, extended her feet across his stomach. Shih-chung was just then reflecting on other matters, but when she placed her feet there he conveniently grasped them and rubbed them in his palms. He had very powerful hands and grasped and rubbed her feet so that she became more excited with each passing moment. For her it was a mixture of suffering and pleasure. The more it hurt, the more intense became her feelings of delight; she moaned, unable to bear the excitement any longer . . .
She usually felt pain in her little feet, bound so tightly, whenever she walked around. But when her feet were held in Shih-chung’s palms and powerfully rubbed, though she cried out, this pain was really delightful. Not only was she unafraid, but she hoped that he would apply even greater pressure . . .
He rubbed her feet as usual; she cried out as usual. She thought: “If I hadn’t made my feet so tiny through binding, perhaps Shih-chung couldn’t enclose them in his palms so tightly.” . . . Shih-chung had previously doubted that women’s bound feet were of any use. Now he understood for the first time that they were for the convenience of a man to knead, and in addition made the flesh of the thighs especially sensual. “This was certainly the invention of an unknown genius!”
Footbinding became much more widespread in the Mongol dynasty which succeeded the Sung. One popular story about it, which supposedly happened at that time, has enjoyed mass circulation. It is both read as a novel and performed as a play. The story is called Meng Li-chun, while the title of the play is usually given as Meng Li-chun Removes Her Shoes. Any claims as to historicity are to be discounted.
The heroine of the tale was Meng Li-chun, the daughter of a court official supposedly active during the early Mongol rule of China. She was a precocious and well-read child, adept in medicine and fortune-telling. When she reached her sixteenth year, two sons of high officials sought to marry her. They were the son of Huang-p’u Ch’ing and Liu Kuei-pi, son of the emperor’s father-in-law Liu Chieh. The young men competed for her through an archery contest, which Liu Kuei-pi lost when one of his three shots missed the target. Liu bitterly resented the defeat and asked his father to find some means to incriminate the clan of Huang-p’u Ch’ing.
Bandits in Shantung were then a menace to public order. Liu Chieh petitioned the emperor to appoint Huang-p’u Ch’ing to lead a subjugation campaign against them. This was done, but he was taken captive in the fighting. Liu Chieh falsely informed the emperor that Huang-p’u Ch’ing had capitulated, and as a result his clan was incarcerated. Only the son Huang-p’u Shao-hua managed to escape.
Meng Li-chim evaded an order that she marry Liu Kuei-pi and went to the capital in male disguise. She placed first in competitive examinations because of her brilliance and erudition. The empress later contracted an illness which only she could cure; as a reward, she was given the highest military rank. Shantung rebels were still active. To combat them, Meng Li-chun convinced the emperor that the nation should recruit its talent through impartial testing. Huang-p’u Shao-hua achieved top honors and took charge of the troops who crushed the rebellion.
He returned as a military hero, to a court where Meng Li-chun was now serving as minister. She was afraid to reveal her disguise to the emperor, for fear of punishment. However, the emperor had his own doubts as to her sex. He deliberately got her drunk at a banquet and ordered a palace lady to inspect her feet. Uncertainties about her sex were dispelled, for the carefully-concealed bound feet which were revealed fell into the three-inch golden lotus category. The emperor, concludes our storyteller, compassionately let Meng Li-chun resign her post, resume feminine dress, and marry her beloved Huang-p’u Shao-hua. Another version of the story had Meng Li-chun joined in heroic acts by two other young ladies, who also married the hero.
Bound feet played a more important part in another popular tale of love which, however, may have originally had some foundation in fact. The story was already known in the T’ang and Southern Sung dynasties, but depiction of the tiny shoes probably represented a post-Sung amplification. A popular Chinese movie in operatic style based on this theme was shown in 1963 to packed audiences in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and overseas Chinese centers.
A Chin dynasty (ca. 4th-5th c.) scholar named Liang Shan-po was a good friend of a fellow classmate named Chu Ying-t’ai, who was really a woman in disguise. Miss Chu concealed her identity in order to pursue studies away from home which were available to men only. Liang and Chu got along so well together that they shared the same bed, though the heroine, as our version of the story goes, placed a pan of water between them.
One day Miss Chu had to return home to her parents. She had become emotionally attached to Liang and took leave of him with regret. Under the bed, she left behind a pair of tiny shoes; the moment Liang saw them, he realized that his charming bedmate had been a woman, a woman with whom he was deeply in love. He rushed to her door, only to be told that three days before she had gone to marry a Mr. Ma. The distraught Liang took sick and died.
When Miss Chu heard of the death of her beloved, she went straight to his burial place. There she spoke these words: “If you have a spirit presence, open the doors of the grave; otherwise, I shall have to become a member of Mr. Ma’s household.” No sooner had the words been uttered than the doors opened. The overjoyed girl stepped inside, after which the grave closed as before. While astonished onlookers were exclaiming on what had happened, two butterflies flew out from the grave and soared off together towards the heavens. This story is so well known that certain yellow and black butterflies are still respectively called Liang Shan-po and Chu Ying-t’ai.
The reference to butterflies is reminiscent of a more general superstition concerning death. There was a belief that women who had bound feet and long fingernails would, when they died, be treated in the nether world like members of the upper class.
Due consideration was to be given them because they enjoyed the attributes of the wealthy.
There was another theme of unrequited love in which the paths of frustration led to the grave. The wife of a merchant from Nanhai bore a son when the couple was more than forty years old. The child showed strange tendencies; he would insist on only eating food placed on the tiny toes of his mother or wet-nurse. This annoyed the merchant, but his wife reminded him:
Our child was born because you liked to smell my feet nightly and kiss my private parts. His preference for the tiny foot is hereditary. We should pray for the birth of a girl somewhere who achieves lovable little feet, so that she can marry him and satisfy his special desire.