Foot bindingBy: Sari Kroschel

What is it?

•A very painful process of making a girls feet smaller•The toes are broken backwards•The arch is shifted upwards•The “ideal” foot is about 3 to 4 inches long

Reason/History

• Small feet were considered beautiful• When a boy was trying to find a wife, his

mother would look the girl with the smallest feet

• It all started in the early 10th century when and emperor had one of his servants bind her feet, then took off with the wealthy

Process

• Between the ages of 3 and 7, girls had cloths wrapped around their feet.

• The cloths bent and broke the toes under their foot and pushed the arch up.

• The foot had to be broken many times to get the perfect shape

• This kept going on for about 3 years so the foot was as small as it could be.

Random facts

• The first high-heals were made for people with bounded feet.

• If they didn’t have their feet bound, then they had no hope of a good marriage.

• They way that they walked was called ‘”Lotus gait”’.

The Downside?

• It hurt, a lot!• Infection was very common , and arthritis

stayed with many girls for their entire lives.• All were maimed for life• Because they couldn’t wash all of the folds of

skin, they had to always wear shoes or else the smell would be to great.

• You couldn’t walk, run, or stand.

Today

• In 1912, the new Republic of China banded foot binding.

• Some people ignored the law and still bound their feet.

• In about 1930 the tradition died out.• It’s still illegal today.

THE END• http://www.kidzworld.com/article/2142-history-chinese-foot-binding• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_binding#History• http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Foot_binding