My great-grandmother (on my father side) passed away when I was only 12 years old. By then she was 91 years old. Her feet with bound since she was a young girl so even at 91 her feet were only three-inch long, which also known as “three-inch golden lotuses”. She was very traditional, strict and serious Chinese lady but always kind.
I remembered when I was a little kid; she always brought me to the market near our house and bought food for the entire family. Because of her age and her three-inch feet, when she walked, she needed a walker to steady herself and keep her body balanced. And she couldn’t walk that far, especially long distances for extended times.
My grandmother, on the other hand, also had bound feet, but hers were a little bit bigger, maybe about four-inches. She told me it was because her mother hadn’t bound her feet that long. Later I learned that her mother started to bind her feet when she was four years old, while my great-grandmother’s feet bound when she was only three years old! So probably that explains why her feet were smaller than my grandmother’s.
My grandmother, on my father’s side, is now 83 years old and lives with my parents. Both of my great-grandmother and my grandmother’s father would not allow them to attend school. They was never able to even read or write their own name. They made their own three-inch golden lotus shoes.
I remembered every year, in the spring and summer when the weather started to become warmer, in the early evening; they would sit outside the house and make their own shoes and clothes while chatting with our neighbors. They spent their “leisure” time making elaborate shoes for themselves. I was so small at that time, but I would also sit there and help them prepare the material, such as preparing the glue into the bowl for them to use. The glue was homemade from starch powder.
Because my parents were young and busy with their work in that time, so they sent me to live with my grandparents (my father side) since one year old (I live with them until 17 years old, then back to live with my parents). That’s why I got chance to spend my childhood and teen time with my great-grandmother and had lot of conversation with her.
She told me I am a very lucky girl because I don’t have to binding my feet and face all the pain.
She said she cried a lot when her mother binding her feet, as well as my grandmother who said the same thing to me. Their mother were using strip of bandage ten feet long and two inches wide was wrapped tightly around their foot to stop it from developing properly. The four small toes were broken and bent under the sole. The arch of the foot was bowed to make the foot shorter. The bandage was tightened each day and the foot was put into smaller and smaller shoes. In two years, the process was finished. By then, the foot was useless for walking very far.
The entire binding process was very painful! But they have no choices and they couldn’t do anything since they were born into a big family.
They told me, in that time, a girl with a three-inch foot will be considered as perfect, as beautiful. Girls from a poor family could never afford to have bound feet because they need a pair of strong broad feet for hard work. Three-inch feet are a symbol of women’s status and identity. It was a symbol of wealthy. For the wealthy it was status and proof of a girl’s worth. Both of my great-grandmother and my grandmother’s feet are just slightly larger than cigarette box.
Foot binding was designed to literally keep women in their place. Regarded as property, they couldn’t walk more than a few steps without someone to support them. This guaranteed they weren’t going to get anywhere unless they were willing to crawl.
This tradition painful art practice has been last one thousand years. The practice of foot binding finally declared illegal during the formation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.
I missed my great-grandmother and my grandmother very much, missed the nice time that we spent together. When I live with them, I like to watch their feet because their feet so small and so cute (even smaller than my childhood feet). I am still doing that – watch my grandmother’s feet every time I go to visit her.
I was wondering if the practices of foot binding still exist today. Where am I then? What my feet will look like – maybe I get two-inch feet instead of three, huh! 
