At 5 or 6 years old, while other girls were still learning to run, many Chinese girls began a painful process that would change their feet forever.
For nearly 1.000 years, foot binding was a widespread practice in China. The toes, except for the big toe, were folded beneath the sole and wrapped in increasingly tight strips of cloth to change the shape of the foot. The so-called “golden lotuses” or “lotus feet”, measuring just 7,5 centimeters, were considered a symbol of beauty and elegance. For some families, achieving that size could improve a daughter’s chances of marriage.
Photographs show the consequences this tradition had for the women who underwent it: deformed, arched feet with toes permanently folded under, which had to be fitted into small, custom-made shoes. And although the practice gradually disappeared during the 20th century, the last known factory making shoes for bound feet closed in Harbin in 1999.
