When I reached the age of nine, natural feet began to prevail. Father was made school principal in Pin-chiang and took mother and me there. Father thought that since as principal he was advocating foot emancipation, it was only proper that he order me to let my feet out. I was unwilling, because I thought that tiny feet were the most beautiful. But I changed my mind as I learned about the harmfulness of footbinding. To let out my feet, I washed them three times in a special medicinally prepared water which made the bones very soft. I then pulled the four toes flat and massaged them. The letting out process was completed in less than half a year. My feet were natural again, but quite thin and narrow and only a little over five inches long. Now they have grown an additional inch. The formula which I used to wash my feet startled everyone with its effectiveness.
I lived in Men-t’ou Village as a child; it was a village where girls considered tiny feet beautiful. When I was just six years old, mother started my footbinding. She first bound the right foot, then the left, and had me wear red cloth shoes.
After a long time, I no longer felt pain, and by the age of eight or nine could do the binding myself. By eleven, my feet were 4.5 inches long, and bowed. On grandmother’s birthday, I went with mother to visit her. My cousins had tiny feet, and my uncle laughed at me for having such big and fat feet by comparison, saying: “Who would be willing to be your matchmaker?” Everyone who heard this remark laughed, making me feel so ashamed that I determined to bind my feet to the utmost in order to wipe out the disgrace. That night, when everyone was asleep, I rebound so tightly that I had to clench my teeth because of the pain.
My sleep that night was filled with dreams of tiny three-inch feet. The next morning, though the pain’ had lessened, I had to cling to the walls for walking support. After ten days of treatment my feet measured only 3.8 inches, which was seven-tenths of an inch less than before. Three or five days later, my toes became swollen and filled with pus. After one month, they had become nine-tenths of an inch smaller, or 2.9 inches. My feet had become the best of the surrounding villages!
The pain involved initially in footbinding must have been extreme and at times excruciating for the women who recorded their experiences to have remembered these details of early childhood so vividly. The intensity of suffering must have depended somewhat, however, on the nature of the daughter-mother relationship and on the amount of maternal care devoted to the binding process. In one case, frequent massage alleviated discomfort; in others, the maternal reminder that only in this way could beauty be achieved afforded some solace to the young girl who was approaching womanhood. The greatest cruelties must have been inflicted by either stepmothers or those in a prospective mother-in-law status. The element of motherly love was missing in either instance, and the absence of words of comfort must have intensified the terror and dread felt by the unprotected child. Our recorded biographies reflect the modesty of the writers, women of respectable backgrounds, and no reference is made to the sexual attraction for the male which the tiny foot possessed.
Chapter Ten
Ladies of the Bound-Foot Era
This chapter includes the translated statements of elderly Chinese ladies as they recall a central event in childhood—the binding of feet to stunt growth and conform with the aesthetic and social standards of a bygone era. Their testimony has been supplemented by other records in narrative form. Eleven women were interviewed in Taiwan between October, 1960, and May, 1961. While general areas of agreement emerged, there was occasional divergence on specific points. For example, all informants agreed that binding was painful, except for one, a seventy-one-year-old Taiwanese. When Mrs. Ch’en Cheng Chien was asked how she felt at the start, she stated:
It didn’t hurt. Mother liked her daughters very much and when the process started was very comforting, telling me that when I married small feet would be considered the most beautiful and would impress everyone. I never stealthily removed the bandages, as I wanted to be beautiful. I liked making the shoes very much. Because my family was relatively well-off, I often competed with my sisters to see whose foot was the prettiest and who made the most elegantly embroidered shoes. Every day we were very happy together.
When asked about her mother’s reactions, Mrs. Chen replied: “I was unaware of pain and never told Mother that my feet hurt, so I don’t know.”
Mrs. Ch’en must have enjoyed a happy childhood and the kind of loving maternal care which minimized the discomfort involved. But her reactions contrasted sharply with those of other informants. There was a seventy-two-year-old mainlander from Kiangsi named Madam Hsiung who, when asked, “Was footbinding painful?” remarked: “It was very painful at the start. I cried and cried everytime. But the pain left after several months.” “How did your mother feel when she first began binding your feet?” “She surely felt bad, but with unbound feet a girl could not easily find a husband.” Mrs. Yang Mien, an eighty-one-year-old Taiwanese, had this to say:
My foot felt very painful at the start, and the heels became odoriferous and deteriorated. Cotton and wine were used to cure it. My whole body became emaciated, my face color changed, and I couldn’t sleep at night, frightening my mother.
“How did mother feel when she first began binding your feet?” “I cried out because of the pain in my foot, and Mother and Grandmother could not bear to see me cry, so we cried together. . . .” “Did someone have to support you when you walked?”
A person’s support wasn’t needed, for I was able to walk by holding on to the wall for support. But when I first started footbinding, I couldn’t even do that, for when I stood up it hurt. I had to sit down, and sat most of the day. My family were very good to me and would take food in for me to eat. . . . Five days after the foot was bound, it could be washed, but it hurt painfully. Very young children probably didn’t know severe pain.
(The photographs indicate that Mrs. Yang Mien, who still binds, was subjected to a more severe foot compression than Mrs. Ch’en, who gave up the practice at the age of twenty.)
The statement that one out of ten girls died from footbinding was undoubtedly an exaggeration, perpetrated by missionaries and others who were unalterably opposed to the practice. An objective historian remarked that as a custom it was more inconvenient than dangerous. He noted that “among the many thousands of patients who have received aid in the missionary hospitals, few or none have presented themselves with ailments chargeable to this source.” One Chinese doctor, in speaking of the indirect adverse effects, stated that it caused the menstrual flow to become irregular. Tight binding brought this about by constricting veins and slowing circulation. Disease symptoms were constipation, a sore back, dizziness, and vomiting.
These finally become chronic complaints. The irregular flow of blood causes such worry and is so uncontrollable that finally a doctor is sought. A good doctor can alleviate the condition, but one ignorant of its causes can imperil the patient’s life.