I was born in a certain district in western Honan Province, at the end of the Manchu dynasty. In accordance with custom, at the age of seven I began binding. I had witnessed the pain of my cousins, and in the year it was to begin was very much frightened. That autumn, distress befell me. One day prior my mother told me: “You are now seven, just at the right age for binding. If we wait, your foot will harden, increasing the pain. You should have started in the spring, but because you were weak we waited till now. Girls in other families have already completed the process. We start tomorrow. I will do this for you lightly and so that it won’t hurt; what daughter doesn’t go through this difficulty?” She then gave me fruit to eat, showed me a new pair of phoenix-tip shoes, and beguiled me with these words: “Only with bound feet can you wear such beautiful shoes. Otherwise, you’ll become a large-footed barbarian and everyone will laugh at and feel ashamed of you.” I felt moved by a desire to be beautiful and became steadfast in determination, staying awake all night.
I got up early the next morning. Everything had already been prepared. Mother had me sit on a stool by the bed. She threaded a needle and placed it in my hair, cut off a piece of alum and put it alongside the binding cloth and the flowered shoes. She then turned and closed the bedroom door. She first soaked my feet in a pan of hot water, then wiped them, and cut the toenails with a small scissors. She then took my right foot in her hands and repeatedly massaged it in the direction of the plantar. She also sprinkled alum between my toes. She gave me a pen point to hold in my hands because of the belief that my feet might then become as pointed as it was. Later she took a cloth three feet long and two inches wide, grasped my right foot, and pressed down the four smaller toes in the direction of the plantar. She joined them together, bound them once, and passed the binding from the heel to the foot surface and then to the plantar. She did this five times and then sewed the binding together with thread. To prevent it from getting loosened, she tied a slender cotton thread from the tip of the foot to its center.
She did the same thing with the left foot and forced my feet into flowered shoes which were slightly smaller than the feet were. The tips of the shoes were adorned with threads in the shape of grain. There was a ribbon affixed to the mouth of the shoe and fastened on the heel. She ordered me to get down from the bed and walk, saying that if I didn’t the crooked-shaped foot would be seriously injured. When I first touched the ground, I felt complete loss of movement; after a few trials, only the toes hurt greatly. Both feet became feverish at night and hurt from the swelling. Except for walking, I sat by the k’ang. Mother rebound my feet weekly, each time more tightly than the last. I became more and more afraid. I tried to avoid the binding by hiding in a neighbor’s house. If I loosened the bandage, mother would scold me for not wanting to look nice. After half a year, the tightly bound toes began to uniformly face the plantar. The foot became more pointed daily; after a year, the toes began to putrefy. Corns began to appear and thicken, and for a long time no improvement was visible. Mother would remove the bindings and lance the corns with a needle to get rid of the hard core. I feared this, but mother grasped my legs so that I couldn’t move. Father betrothed me at the age of nine to a neighbor named Chao, and I went to their house to serve as a daughter-in-law in the home of my future husband. My mother-in-law bound my feet much more tightly than mother ever had, saying that I still hadn’t achieved the standard. She beat me severely if I cried; if I unloosened the binding, I was beaten until my body was covered with bruises. Also, because my feet were somewhat fleshy, my mother-in-law insisted that the foot must become inflamed to get the proper results. Day and night, my feet were washed in a medicinal water; within a few washings I felt special pain. Looking down, I saw that every toe but the big one was inflamed and deteriorated. Mother-in-law said that this was all to the good. I had to be beaten with fists before I could bear to remove the bindings, which were congealed with pus and blood. To get them loose, such force had to be used that the skin often peeled off, causing further bleeding. The stench was hard to bear, while I felt the pain in my very insides. My body trembled with agitation. Mother-in-law was not only unmoved but she placed tiles inside the binding in order to hasten the inflammation process. She was deaf to my childish cries. Every other day, the binding was made tighter and sewn up, and each time slightly smaller shoes had to be worn. The sides of the shoes were hard, and I could only get into them by using force. I was compelled to walk on them in the courtyard; they were called distance-walking shoes. I strove to cling to life, suffering indescribable pain. Being in an average family, I had to go to the well and pound the mortar unaided. Faulty blood circulation caused my feet to become insensible in winter. At night, I tried to warm them by the k’ang, but this caused extreme pain. The alternation between frost and thawing caused me to lose one toe on my right foot. Deterioration of the flesh was such that within a year my feet had become as pointed as new bamboo shoots, pointing upwards like a red chestnut. The foot surface was slightly convex, while the four bean-sized toes were deeply imbedded in the plantar like a string of cowry shells. They were only a slight distance from the heel of the foot. The plantar was so deep that several coins could be placed in it without difficulty. The large toes faced upwards, while the place on the right foot where the little toe had deteriorated away pained at irregular intervals. It left an ineffacable scar.
My feet were only three inches long, at the most. Belatives and friends praised them, little realizing the cisterns of tears and blood which they had caused. My husband was delighted with them, but two years ago he departed this world. The family wealth was dissipated, and I had to wander about, looking for work. That was how I came down to my present circumstances. I envy the modern woman. If I too had been born just a decade or so later, all of this pain could have been avoided. The lot of the natural-footed woman and mine is like that of heaven and hell.
Love of the lotus disappeared when I heard her words; my wife was also similarly affected. I have recorded this in order to warn the young girls of today against binding their feet.
The use of medicinal waters to hasten the footbinding process, mentioned in the maid’s account, was known throughout China. There were many prescriptions designed to soften the bones and make binding painless. Washing the feet in a broth of boiled monkey bones was cautioned against, as this made the feet so soft that one could never walk again. An approved prescription was to take a half ounce each of tannin, balsam seeds, and pomegranate skin, and boil these in water with three-tenths of an ounce of wormwood. Another method was to boil one-tenth of an ounce of almonds and four-tenths of an ounce of the bark of mulberry roots in five cups of water, until only three cups of the liquid remained. Then a half ounce of tannin and one-tenth of an ounce of frankincense were added and melted through further boiling. The feet were washed in this mixture once every three days; softening was guaranteed after more than ten applications. Still another way to “shrink the golden lotus” was to boil together white balsam, including blossoms, branches, leaves and roots, pound it into a powder, and add a little alum. The feet were bound while they were still warm from having been washed in this mixture. Another bone softener was an ash mixture made by burning together a similar amount of borax, China Root paste, and buckwheat sticks. Boiling water was added, and the feet were washed in it while the water was still hot. If the feet became so soft that walking on them proved impossible, the antidote was to wash them in water made by boiling together an ounce of raw alum, an ounce of purple copper powder, and a large bowl of Yin-yang water. This restored their original hardness. Soaking the feet in the blood of a newly-killed sheep was described as a special technique practiced only in Shansi. Special mountain herbs were also said to be especially efficacious and to produce wondrously quick results.