Good lord! I had no idea that this had been done so recently. That's horrible.

I never fully understood what all was involved before. Whew, breaking the toes under the foot - wtf. I have a new wrinkle in my forehead from just reading about it.

What a fascinating read, getoffmylawn. I didn't realize it had gone on for so long, or that there were still so many women with bound feet. I've seen photos of bare feet that had suffered binding - I have no idea how they actually walk. This was a treat, thank you!

Thanks for the link, goml. Foot binding, in my opinion, is just a step below female circumcision on the list of horrible things done to women over the years.

I did a Google search for "bound foot" (beware: you might want to do that with safe-search on); the shoes they made/make for bound feet are quite beautiful.