Foot Binding

This past weekend we attended a wedding out in the countryside. I have never experienced anything like that before and I will never forget it. The wedding took place in a village and it appeared that most of the people from the village where there. When we arrived at the groom's house (where the ceremony took place) there was a large crowd waiting. I looked around and saw many different faces, some sad, some happy, most of them intrigued by our white faces. I saw this woman here and noticed that her feet were bound. After living in China for 6 years, in 3 different cities I have never seen this before. I was fascinated by it and when I began this blog I started searching online for information. I found this page that had stories from many different Chinese women who were still binding their feet (I believe these interviews were done around 1989). This woman here, along with one other villager I saw who also had bound feet, wasn't wearing the pretty 3 inch embroidered shoes but these black shoes which are very commonly found around China. Around 1949 the government came around and made the women unbind their feet. This was very painful and some women decided to keep binding their feet because they couldn't walk.