Poems about foot binding

1. What is Lu Xun’s poem about foot binding?

In Lu Xun’s article "Feng Bo", the symbolic meaning of the "health" of Jiujin old lady is: Jiujin old lady essentially She is an image of an ignorant rural woman. Her catchphrase is "each generation is inferior to the last". She has always been "healthy" and physically strong, which was gained at the cost of a lifetime of submissiveness, insensitivity, and exploitation.

Her "health" essentially symbolizes the deep-rooted rural hierarchical patriarchal system and the ideological corrosion of the vast number of farmers by the distorted "gold mean". It symbolizes the incompleteness of the Revolution of 1911.

Although Qijin’s pigtails were cut off, causing a “turmoil”, Chinese society still moves forward according to its inherent rhythm without any change. Foot-binding is one of the bad habits of China's feudal society and a symbol of the traditional patriarchal society. The Revolution of 1911 only canceled an imperial title in name. In the bones of Chinese society, those feudal factors are still quite strong and have not changed in any way.

The author of the novel wants to hint to readers through the detail of the six-pound version of foot binding that it is a very arduous task to change Chinese society and completely transform China. Revolution is not achieved overnight, and there is still a long period of time. The only way to go is to get rid of the six-pound foot-binding cloth. It is not enough to rely on a top-down revolution like the Revolution of 1911. There must be a bottom-up revolution. This reflects the author's simple democratic revolutionary consciousness. 2. Ancient records of foot binding

Looking at Longwei, near Fengcheng. Everyone is gathering in the clouds, and people are walking along the street to welcome you.

Good things happen in the year, and this time belongs to Dongjun. The song pipe welcomes the five horses, Jin Zhanglan, Huabo and Zhulun. It's spring in class. When I return to my bed, the fragrance is heavy and the candle flowers are light.

The tide is flat at dusk. The virtuous governor comes to welcome you at dusk

The elders greet each other with greetings, but they are still beautiful and green-haired

The phoenix flies in the corridor, the cuckoo sings in the courtyard, meeting each other is like waking up from a dream. Whoever is ruthless is welcomed by flying red and dancing green. Drinking in front of the green hair and flowers in youth, drunkenly singing and remembering that time

Jishan, now and ancient times, is a place where famous people live. Children and bamboo horses are welcome to cross the road and compete to sing and dance for you. In those days, Penglai was showing off, and he came to be the master of Penglai again

The custom of foot binding

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The original meaning and origin of foot binding have been greatly misunderstood by ordinary people. But no matter what, it once represented a symbol that bound and oppressed women, and this method is very suitable for this effect. During the Song Dynasty, the Confucian master Zhu Xi also enthusiastically promoted the foot-binding system in southern Fujian as a tool to spread Han culture and teach people to differentiate between men and women. If footbinding was only regarded as a sign of oppression of women, then mothers would not be so enthusiastic about binding their daughters' feet. In fact, the nature of footbinding has always been a sexual relationship, and its origin undoubtedly originated from the palace of the debauched king. The reason why it is popular among men is that men worship golden lotus and embroidered shoes as the idols of love, and appreciate its graceful gait. The reason why it is popular among women is because their desire arouses the love of men. That’s all.

The origin and era of the foot-binding system is a subject of great debate. This is actually unnecessary, because it is more appropriate to talk about its evolution. The only correct explanation for foot binding is to use several yards of long strips of cloth to tie up the feet and discard the socks. For the first time in history, this method was clearly recorded by the late master of the Southern Tang Dynasty. The period was around the early tenth century or before the Song Dynasty. Concubine Yang Guifei in the Tang Dynasty still wore socks, because after her death, one of her socks fell into the hands of an old woman and was passed around among the people. The trend of crazily praising women's slim feet and their bow shoes was prevalent in the Tang Dynasty. The style of the bow shoes, with the toe pointed upward, is similar to the bow of a Roman rowing boat, which may be the origin or a preliminary form of foot binding. This kind of bow shoes were originally used by the dancers in the palace. In this luxurious atmosphere, full of women's dance and music, lingering with musk and ambergris, and splendid bead curtains, a unique idea will naturally arise, and the result is Such sexual pretense. This creative intention belongs to the Empress of the Southern Tang Dynasty. He turned out to be a delicate poet. He had a palace maid with bound feet who could walk lightly on a six-foot-tall golden lotus petal, surrounded by beaded flowers. gold chain. Since then, this custom has been imitated by the people. The small feet are bound and decorated with golden lotus or fragrant lotus. These words are often dotted in poems. The word "fragrance" is very meaningful, because it indicates the sensual atmosphere in wealthy Chinese families. Their study rooms are filled with strange fragrance, and huge works were written in such study rooms. 3. Looking for a historical introduction to women's foot binding in the past dynasties

Foot binding is a bad habit in ancient China, which is to wrap a woman's feet with cloth to turn them into small and pointed "three-legged feet". "Inch Golden Lotus".

The "three-inch golden lotus" once became an important condition for women's aesthetics in ancient China. But when did ancient women's feet begin to be bound, and why were the bound feet called "Golden Lotus"? But it remains a mystery.

Legends about the Origin of Foot Binding There are different opinions about the origin of foot binding. Some say it began in the Sui Dynasty, some say it began in the Tang Dynasty, and some say it began in the Five Dynasties.

Some people even say that Yu’s wife and Daji during the Xia and Shang dynasties had little feet.

It can be said that there are different opinions and no consensus.

There are indeed traces of this in ancient Chinese myths and legends. Legend has it that when Dayu was controlling floods, he married Tushan's daughter and gave birth to his son Qi.

The Tushan girl was a fox spirit with small feet. It is also said that Daji, the concubine of King Zhou of the late Yin Dynasty, was also transformed from a fox spirit, or a pheasant spirit, but her feet did not get better. , and wrapped it in cloth. Because Daji was favored, the women in the palace followed her example and bound their feet.

Of course, these are just folk myths and legends, which contain more elements of romance and are not enough to prove that women at that time bound their feet. Foot binding began in the Sui Dynasty and also originated from folklore.

It is said that when Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty traveled eastward to Jiangdu, he selected hundreds of beauties to have his hair stretched. A woman named Wu Yueniang was selected.

She hated Emperor Yang’s tyranny, so she asked her father, a blacksmith, to make a three-inch long and one-inch wide lotus petal knife. She wrapped the knife under her feet with a long cloth, and also tried to protect her feet. Wrap small. Then a lotus was engraved on the sole, and a beautiful lotus was printed every step of the way.

Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty was very happy to see Houlong and called her close, wanting to play with her little feet. Wu Yueniang slowly untied the foot binding, suddenly pulled out the lotus petal knife and stabbed Emperor Sui Yang.

Emperor Sui Yang quickly dodged past, but his arm had been stabbed. When Wu Yueniang saw that the assassination failed, she threw herself into the river and committed suicide.

Afterwards, Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty issued a decree: No matter how beautiful the woman is in future beauty pageants, "no women with bound feet will be selected." But in order to commemorate Yueniang, folk women bound their feet one after another.

At this point, the trend of binding women’s feet became increasingly popular. It is said that foot binding began in the Five Dynasties. It originated from the concubine of Empress Li of the Southern Tang Dynasty. She was beautiful and talented, good at singing and dancing. Empress Li specially made a six-foot-tall golden lotus and decorated it with jeweled silk ribbons and tassels. The mother bound her feet with silk, bending her slender feet into a crescent shape, and then put on plain stockings to dance on the lotus platform, thus making her dance more graceful.

Foot-binding has been recorded in the Song Dynasty, and some scholars have pointed out through research that foot-binding among ancient Chinese women began in the Northern Song Dynasty. Before the Five Dynasties, Chinese women did not bind their feet. Su Dongpo, a poet of the Song Dynasty, once wrote a poem called "Bodhisattva Barbarian" to praise footbinding.

"The lotus painted with incense carries the step, and the long sorrow wears the stockings and floats away; I only see the dance returning to the wind, and there is no where to go. The secret palace is as stable, and the two are trapped together; the delicate saying To cope with the difficulty, you must read it from the palm of your hand."

This can also be called the first poem dedicated to foot binding in the history of Chinese poetry. It should be noted that the writing of foot-binding poems is dependent on the emergence of the custom of foot-binding, which shows that the custom of foot-binding did appear in the Song Dynasty.

By the Southern Song Dynasty, it was more common for women to have their feet bound. Even in the late Southern Song Dynasty, "little feet" had become a general term for women. However, in the Southern Song Dynasty, foot-binding was not yet popular among women. Foot-binding practitioners were mainly limited to the upper class, and foot-binding had not yet reached the point where it was accepted by everyone in terms of social concepts.

At the same time, the custom of foot binding was spread from the north to the south, probably when the Song Dynasty moved south. There are differences between the foot binding in the Song Dynasty and the three-inch golden lotus in later generations.

According to historical records, foot binding in the Song Dynasty was to bind the feet to make them "slim and straight" but not bowed. It was called "quickly mount the horse" at that time. The shoes used are called "wrong bottoms" and have sharp soles made of two colors.

At present, the actual object of this kind of foot-binding shoes has been discovered in archaeology. It is inferred from the physical objects discovered in archeology that the feet wrapped in such shoes were larger than those of later generations.

After the Mongolian nobles took over the Central Plains during the Jianyuan Dynasty, they did not originally bind their feet, but they did not object to the Han people's foot-binding habit. On the contrary, they still admired it. In this way, the foot-binding trend continued to develop in the Yuan Dynasty. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the concept of being ashamed of not binding feet even emerged.

In the Yuan Dynasty, women's foot binding continued to develop in a smaller direction, but at this time there were still many people who did not bind their feet, especially in the southern Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Lingnan regions. In the Ming Dynasty, the practice of women's foot binding entered a period of prosperity and developed rapidly in various places.

When Zhang Xianzhong invaded Sichuan at the end of the Ming Dynasty, he cut off the feet of women on a large scale, until they piled up into a mountain called Golden Lotus Peak, which shows the prevalence of foot binding among women in Sichuan. During this period, there were also certain requirements for the shape of bound feet. Not only did women's feet have to be small, they had to be shrunk to three inches, they also had to be arched, and they had to be wrapped in the shape of horns and millet.

After the Manchu rulers took over the Central Plains, they initially strongly opposed the Han people's foot-binding custom and repeatedly issued orders prohibiting women's foot-binding. However, it was difficult to stop the foot-binding practice at this time, and the ban had to be discontinued in the seventh year of Kangxi (1668).

This incident was once exaggerated by people as "men surrendered and women refused to accept it" - when the Qing soldiers entered the customs, there was a "hair-shaving order". Under the high pressure of force, Han men finally had to surrender and enforce it, so men Shaving one's hair was seen as a symbol of submission to the Qing court. At the same time, although women's foot binding was also ordered to stop by the Qing court, it was not banned later, so there is a saying that "men surrender but women do not surrender".

This shows how deep-rooted the practice of foot binding is. It is precisely because of this that women's foot binding reached its peak in the Qing Dynasty. Women from all walks of life, no matter rich or poor, had their feet bound.

Even some ethnic minorities as far away as the northwest and southwest have contracted the custom of foot binding. At the same time, women’s tiny feet have received unprecedented adoration and attention.

During this period, the shape and size of feet became important criteria for judging the beauty and ugliness of women. As a woman, whether or not to bind her feet and how well they were bound would directly affect her personal life-long events. At that time, when people from all walks of life married, they were ashamed of a woman's big feet and proud of her small feet.

The saying "three-inch golden lotus" is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and there are even some that are less than three inches long. There were even "Miss Hugs", in which women had difficulty moving because their feet were too small and had to be carried in and out. Moreover, such women were quite popular at the time.

Why are small feet called "Golden Lotus"? Speaking of "Three-Inch Golden Lotus", people can't help but ask, why are women's small feet called "Golden Lotus" because they are bound? How are "Golden Lotus" connected with little feet? People have been interested in this question for a long time, but there is no satisfactory answer. One theory is that Golden Lotus got its name from the story of Concubine Pan, the Marquis of Donghun of Qi Province in the Southern Dynasty, who gave birth to lotus flowers step by step.

Hou Donghun cut gold foil into the shape of a lotus and spread it on the ground. 4. Stories about foot-binding

Stories about foot-binding:

Foot-binding was highly praised by literati in the Song Dynasty. Even outstanding literary giants such as Su Shi and Xin Qiji sang about and appreciated foot-binding. Su Shi's poem "Bodhisattva Man" contains the sentence "Delicate and delicate words must be seen from the palm of the hand". Xin Qiji's "Bodhisattva Man" contains: "The light yellow bow-shaped shoes are small, and the waist is afraid of being blown down by the wind", which is often used as a sentence. People quote.

Mr. Lin Yutang once described a woman’s gait after foot binding: Chinese women’s foot binding completely changed the woman’s style and gait. “It has the same effect as a modern girl wearing high-heeled leather shoes, and it creates a new look.” This extremely restrained and delicate gait makes the whole body weak and shaky, giving rise to a pitiful feeling."

It was this "poor feeling" that inflated the feudal scholar-bureaucrats. sense of one's own superiority. This gave rise to its "highest degree of secrecy in sexual ideals."

Extended information:

Before the founding of New China, Chinese women, especially women in Jilin, had an extremely bumpy road to "advocating women's liberation, calling on women to go into society and strive for independence of personality and dignity" . Not to mention the feudal shackles of "three obediences and four virtues" that control women's thoughts, the bad habit of female foot binding caused Jilin women in the old society to suffer a lot.

The Provincial Archives collects a file on Yuan Shikai, the interim president of the first year of the Republic of China, who "broke the old custom and banned women's foot binding across the country." Yuan Shikai was not the first person in Chinese history to ban foot-binding, but the ban was issued when the Republic of China was just founded and was full of waste. This move was still very meaningful.

Foot binding involves binding a woman’s feet tightly with long strips of cloth since she was a child, making the feet small and deformed in order to look beautiful. In the eyes of the reform and progressive people in the late Qing Dynasty, footbinding was listed as one of the three bad habits along with opium and hair shaving, and was one of the symbols of the backwardness of Chinese society. In fact, foot binding is a "foreign culture" for women in Jilin.

Before the Ming and Qing Dynasties, most Jilin people still lived a nomadic life. Women had to farm and ride horses like men. "Small feet" were not convenient for women. Huang Taiji, Emperor Taizong of the Qing Dynasty, issued an order prohibiting Manchu women from imitating Ming Dynasty women in "tying up their hair and binding their feet." Shunzhi stipulates that those who resist the decree and have their feet bound will have their husbands or fathers to have an eighty-foot stick and travel three thousand miles.

Qianlong issued decrees many times not to allow bannermen women to bind their feet. In the late Qing Dynasty, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom also opposed foot binding. As the number of immigrants from Guanhai to the Northeast increased, customs such as foot binding were also introduced. On March 13, 1912, Sun Yat-sen, the interim president of the Republic of China, issued a nationwide telegram to advise against the ban of foot-binding. Later, his successor Yuan Shikai also committed to strictly prohibiting female foot-binding. At this time, Jilin began to follow the pace of the whole country and banned bad habits such as men's hair growth and women's foot binding.

People's Daily Online - A look at the liberation of women's rights in Jilin during the Republic of China from the perspective of foot binding and short hair 5. Women's feet were bound in ancient times

The standard is 3 cm wide and 10 cm long [the so-called three-inch golden lotus]! Things you need to prepare before foot binding: 1. Six pieces of blue wrapping cloth.

It should be about eight feet to more than ten feet. The wrapping cloth is longer than ordinary and needs to be well-starched so that it can be wrapped around the feet without squeezing out wrinkles. 2. Five pairs of flat shoes.

The shape of the shoe should be slightly pointed, and the size and width of the shoe should be able to be sewed smaller and thinner gradually during the foot binding process. 3. Two or three pairs of sleeping shoes.

Wear it while sleeping to prevent the wrap from loosening. 4. Needlework.

After the wrapping cloth is wrapped, sew the seams of the wrapping cloth and the head of the wrapping cloth tightly. 5. Cotton.

During foot binding, the protruding parts of the foot bones should be padded with cotton when wearing shoes to prevent the feet from being worn out and causing corns. 6. Footbath and hot water.

Wash your feet with warm water before binding them. 7. Small scissors, used for trimming toenails and corns.

Trial binding: When binding the feet, let the girl sit on a low stool, fill the foot basin with hot water, wash the feet clean, and while the feet are still warm, remove the other four toes except the big toe. Try to twist toward the soles of the feet, sprinkle alum powder between the toes to tighten the skin, and prevent fungal infection. Then wrap them with cloth. After wrapping, use needles and threads to fix them. After wrapping your feet, you will often feel hot on the soles of your feet. Experienced people will not wrap it up hard at the beginning. It is best to wrap it up gently at the beginning, so that the two feet can gradually get used to the restraint, and then slowly tighten it again and again. This period can last from a few days. to about two months.

Test tightness: When wrapping, tighten slowly, so that the pressure on the skin of the foot becomes tighter each time. At this time, it should not be too tight. Use the small pain that your feet can bear as a measure. During this period, bend the toes and wrap them. Curl your feet slightly downward.

When wrapping, wrap the second and fifth toes in advance until they are bent toward the feet, and the third and fourth toes will also be bent toward the feet. The tightness test also takes a few days to about two months. During this period, the foot binding cloth is starched harder, the wrinkles are beaten out, and the foot is wrapped slightly tightly, so that the foot is used to the pressure of the hard foot binding cloth and tight wrapping. , and then you can really wrap it tightly.

Wrapping the toes (toe wrapping): When wrapping, wrap the wrapping cloth as tightly as possible. Every time you unwrap it and re-wrap it, you must move the four curled toes from the soles of the feet. Wrap the bottom firmly inward, bending the toes and pressing more under the soles of the feet each time. At the same time, move the four curled toes back one by one from the bottom of the sole of the foot to the heel to make some space between the toes, so as to prevent the toes from being squeezed together and the toes being too thick after the feet are wrapped.

It has to be wrapped until the little toe is pressed under the waist of the foot, and the second toe is pressed under the joint of the big toe. When wrapping the toes, you often have to twist the toes toward the sole of the foot until they are unyielding. degree, and then wrap it tightly with a wrapping cloth. When wrapping, the toe joint of the second toe and the toe joints of the third, fourth, and fifth toes are greatly deformed. Every time it is wrapped, several sprained joints must be removed. The wound was hurt again, and the wrapping was excruciatingly painful. After wrapping, the wrapping cloth had to be sewn tightly with needle and thread, squeezed into pointed shoes, and then the girl was asked to move around. When walking, the weight is placed on the eight toes that are bent inwards, causing the joints to become more sprained. Because the toes have just been bent in and are not yet close to the soles of the feet, corns are easy to form on the toe joints when walking. You need to use a needle to remove the corns from time to time. Lose.

During the day, my feet are so painful that I can hardly walk. At night, it not only hurts to put my feet under the quilt, but is also hot and stuffy. Sometimes it is as painful as burning charcoal. I can only put my feet outside the quilt when sleeping. , it is common to wake up in the middle of the night and cry in pain against the feet. Some people are so painful that they go to untie the foot wraps, but if they are discovered, they will be beaten severely and then go back. They often stay up all night and touch their feet all night long. Stick it against the wall to get a little coolness. When you wake up the next morning, you have to unwrap it and wrap it tighter. In the end, the third, fourth, and fifth toe joints will be severely sprained or even dislocated. When sprained and dislocated, The feet will be swollen badly and the skin will turn purple, which is extremely painful, but they will still be wrapped tightly day by day. Until the swelling subsides and the toes are wrapped down to the soles of the feet, then the task of wrapping the toes is completed. Can be used for skinny wrapping work. Wrapping (Toe Wrapping): When the toe is wrapped, the four toes have been curled back under the sole of the foot, but they may not be able to be pressed against the sole of the foot. The job of Wrapping is to tighten the little toe bone (that is, the outer handle bone) Push down and inward to curl up into the sole of the foot, push the heel of the little toe down toward the inside of the sole of the foot, and then use the wrap to tighten the strap. When wrapping the tip, the second, third, fourth and fifth toes are not pressed under the sole of the foot. Half of the time, when wrapping, you need to wrap the outer handle bones down. Of course, the toes press into the inside of the sole of the foot more. When wrapping until the end, the tips of the third, fourth, and fifth toes must touch the inner edge of the sole of the foot, then the wrap is completed. Work.

When you are thinning, the foot-binding cloth is wrapped as tight as possible, and the entire force is particularly focused on the heel of the little toe. Often due to poor blood circulation, the heel of the little toe, which is the outer handle bone, is pressed. The sores festered. When wrapping, you need to push the little toe bone down hard, and push the four toes along the inner edge of the sole of the foot. Tighten the foot binding tightly. After wrapping, the two feet may be so painful that you can't walk for a long time, so you have to struggle hard. , so that you can walk with your heels to avoid pain when you take a step.

There are throbbing pains when I sit down, and swelling and pain when I sleep. If my feet are ulcerated and suppurated, the swelling will be even more uncomfortable. I have to use pillows and quilts to prop up my feet. Sometimes I have to put my feet up. Resting the heel on the bed rail pressed against the numbness of the nerve to make the pain better. When the weather is hot, the pain in the foot is even worse. When the pain is mild, I fall asleep, but my legs are still painful and cramping, or I wake up frequently throughout the night and eat and drink tasteless.

After unwrapping the wrapping, the ulcerated area was often tightly adhered to the wrapping. If I had to tear it off, I would be left with a bloody mess. It took almost six months to endure the pain and hit it all the way to my toes. Copy it to the inner edge of the foot, and you can touch the toes from the inner edge of the foot. Only in this way can you be considered slim. Festering wounds often become more serious if not treated properly, and eventually may even cause the little toe to rot and fall off, causing chronic osteomyelitis that will not heal for many years.

It can be seen from this that to bind a pair of small feet, you have to go through a lot of hardships. No wonder the women who have bound feet take better care of their little feet than anything else. Wrapping (foot wrapping): After the soles of the feet are thinned, the next step is to wrap the feet. Wrapping is to wrap a deep depression in the sole of the foot. The deeper the depression, the more severe the arch of the foot will be. The sole of the foot is folded into two parts. The front part of the sole is close to the heel. There is a deep slit in the middle that is sometimes as deep as four or five centimeters. The little toe is caught in the deep slit. The instep of the foot swells upwards into a high slope due to the bending of the sole of the foot. , some insteps that are not wrapped well are swollen like balls.

After being bent, the length of the foot will be significantly shortened. 6. Why did the ancients bind their feet?

Foot binding, also called footbinding, began at the end of the Five Dynasties. From the cultural relics and ancient documents excavated underground, we know that before the Five Dynasties, men's and women's shoes were of the same shape. During the reign of Li Yu, the empress of the Southern Tang Dynasty in the Five Dynasties, he indulged in sex, poetry, singing and dancing, and drank and had fun with his concubines all day long.

There was a concubine named Yao Niang in the palace. She was originally the daughter of an official family. Later, due to the ruin of her family, she became a singing girl in Jinling. She is slim, good at singing and dancing, and is favored by Li Yu. Li Yu ordered the construction of a golden lotus platform, six feet high, decorated with treasures, netted with tassels, and various kinds of lotus flowers were installed in Taichung. Make Yao Niang bind her feet with silk, bend her feet upwards to make a crescent moon shape, wear plain stockings and dance in the lotus, whirling like a soaring cloud. Li Yu couldn't help but be happy after seeing it. After that, in order to maintain and improve the unique skills of this kind of dance and stabilize her favored status, Yao Niang often used white silk to wrap her feet tightly. Over time, she wrapped her feet into "red diamond shape" and "crescent shape". Its dancing posture is also more natural and beautiful. People at that time competed to imitate it, and after five generations it gradually became a trend and became popular throughout society.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, Old Man Taiping further commented: "There are three things in modern times that are unparalleled in ancient times: 'Luohua, Jiancha, and women's feet.'" It can be seen that women's feet were bound in the Northern Song Dynasty. Together with Luoyang’s gorgeous peonies and Jianzhou’s fragrant tea, it is considered a wonder in the world! In the early years of the Southern Song Dynasty, Zhao Lingshi wrote a poem "Huanxisha", one of which said: "Three-inch golden lotus shoes for stable small bows." From then on, "three-inch golden lotus" became a synonym for women's small feet. By the late Southern Song Dynasty, foot-binding was becoming more common among women. By the Yuan Dynasty, it was considered a shame for women not to bind their feet. Women's foot binding did not start in the Qing Dynasty. It has been pushed back to the Five Dynasties or the early Song Dynasty. Anyway, people in the Tang Dynasty did not bind their feet. The practice of foot binding flourished in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

In the Song Dynasty, only noble women bound their feet, while ordinary women did not. Moreover, the requirement for bound feet at that time was only to be straight and straight, and it would not cause severe injuries to the muscles and bones in later generations.

It is said that women in ancient times bound their feet because Li Yu, the empress of the Southern Tang Dynasty, liked to watch women dancing on the "golden lotus". Because the gold lotus was too small, the dancers would wrap their feet in white silk. Standing bent on it, it looks graceful, graceful and graceful when dancing. It was originally a dance costume, and then slowly spread from the harem to the upper class society. Later, folk women followed suit one after another, and gradually became a common social custom and became A morbid aesthetic.

For women, beauty is important. It is an important means and way to achieve a better life. As for whether you can walk, who cares?

Why is foot binding popular in China? There are roughly two reasons. One is the influence of the ruler's will on the people of the world, and the other is the appreciation and praise of cultural people. Foot binding has its origins and is related to rulers. It is said that foot binding originated from Li Yu, the empress of the Southern Tang Dynasty who sang "When will the spring flowers and autumn moon come?" His concubines tied their feet with cloth into a crescent shape and danced on the lotus made of gold. Empress Li Thinking this was the most beautiful thing, foot binding began in the harem, and later spread to the people. As long as the emperor likes something, it will be popular among the people. The emperor of the Tang Dynasty loved Taoist culture. Later, Empress Li liked women with small feet, so foot binding became popular. There are still several theories about the origin of foot binding. Some say it started with Pan Yunu, the deposed imperial concubine of Qi in the Southern Dynasty, some say it started with the late Tang Dynasty, some said it started with Emperor Yang of Sui Dynasty, etc., but all without exception Relations with the rulers also explain this reason.

In addition to the will of the ruler, it is the influence of literati on social customs. Women in ancient times paid great attention to their headwear, and then their feet. The idioms "Taking the head and talking about the foot" and "Taking the head and talking about the foot" both have the meaning of discussing women's appearance and body. The head and feet have become an important standard of female beauty in the eyes of educated people. Cultural people have many words of praise for small feet, such as "Golden Lotus", "Three-inch Golden Lotus", "Fragrant Hook", etc., are all words of praise given to small feet by cultural people. Su Dongpo's "Bodhisattva Man" has a poem about feet that says: "Slimness is difficult to say, it must be seen from the palm of your hand", and even formulated seven standards for the beauty of small feet: thin, small, pointed, curved, fragrant, soft, and straight, and also summarized the "seven beauties" of small feet: shape, quality , talent, god, fatness, softness, beauty, it is really profound and profound.

The most standard type is 3 cm wide and 10 cm long [the so-called three-inch golden lotus]

Foot binding is a phenomenon unique to China’s feudal society and was distorted by feudal rulers It is one of the manifestations of social ideological deformity. After the establishment of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the foot-binding liberation order was promulgated. But it was not until the founding of New China that the bad custom of foot binding was completely eradicated.