WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: How Foot Binding Worked 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:03.680 Hey, everybody, it's me Josh and for this week's s 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:07.680 Y s K Selects, I've chosen How Footbinding Worked. It's 0:00:07.720 --> 0:00:11.160 about an unusual practice that was tradition for about a 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:15.720 thousand years in China, and it's just absolutely fascinating. Where 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:18.880 we a little judge you or the usual in this episode, 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:21.760 I would say that's a fair assessment, but hopefully you 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:25.160 won't judge us too harshly and instead just enjoy this 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:33.279 episode because it's a pretty good one. Take care. Welcome 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:42.840 to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:46.080 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:49.480 w Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's over there, and uh, it's 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:52.360 time for stuff you should know, everybody, so settled down, 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:58.320 buckle in, get ready. Hey, congratulations to Kristen Bell stuff 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:01.080 you should know celebrity Van Kristen Bell and her husband 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:04.360 Dak Shepard had their baby. Oh, hey, congratulations, A big 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:08.640 congratulations to you. And uh, I don't know if I 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:11.679 thought you're gonna congratulate her on a kick Starter movie. Oh, 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:14.559 the Veronica Mars movie. Well, congratulations on that. My wife 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:17.800 is very much looking forward to that and your wife 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:20.800 is looking forward to meeting the baby. She's on her 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:24.920 way right now. Kristen Bell's locking the doors. Oh my god. 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:28.479 What started out as a small fascination with their show 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:32.959 and tragedy dangerous made for TV movie obsession Anyway, I 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:35.480 just wanted to say congratulations. Yeah, that's nice if you 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:40.399 chucked sure, Uh, I got no congratulations over here yet. 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:44.240 Interesting that I tied that to this podcast on like 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:48.480 female torture essentially. Do you think there's something to that? Well, 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:50.280 we live in a world now where we don't have 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:52.400 to worry about although I think they had a son 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:56.520 where any little baby's feet being binded, I guess not 0:01:56.560 --> 0:02:04.280 babies but four or five year olds. We're bound? Yeah, yeah, bound, binded, bound, Okay, 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:07.920 because the feet were bound? Yes, yes yeah. Um, do 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:10.120 you think we should explain to everybody what we're talking 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:13.640 about foot binding? Yeah? I'm glad you. UM think you 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:16.400 congratulated Kristen Bell because I didn't really have much of 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:22.320 an intro for this one. Um, because it's just so fascinating. 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:25.080 I feel like we should just kind of dive right in. Yeah. 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:29.840 Fascinating and horrible and like oddly impactful in areas I 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:33.560 never would have considered. So we should say that over 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:37.520 the course of about a thousand years, from roughly seventy 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:41.720 until about the nineteen fifties, like almost on the dot, 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:47.600 a thousand years, about three billion women in China um 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:52.440 bound their feet to basically train them to become small 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:58.200 and pointy in a really bizarre custom that just kind 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:00.799 of came out of nowhere and stuck around again for 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:04.600 about a thousand years, voluntarily deforming their feet. Well, at 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:07.400 the very least their mothers and grandmothers voluntarily deformed their 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:11.200 feet for them. Good. Yeah, it's a very good point. Actually, Um, 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:13.519 but at some point they had to take over, and 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:17.639 I guess then it became voluntary. Well sure, well we'll 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:22.040 get to all that, Okay, Spoilers abound. So basically this 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:27.760 was purposeful deformation of the human foot, the human female foot, uh, 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:31.320 in order to attract men. There was a standard of 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:34.840 beauty abound foot. Um. And we'll describe it in a minute. 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:39.760 But um, the idea, the whole thing kind of came 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:44.200 from they think about, like I said, a d in 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:47.920 the court of an emperor named Lee. You and Lee 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:53.640 you had a favorite girlfriend ballerina girl. Yeah, and apparently 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:58.280 he saw dancing once on a golden lotus pedestal because 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:01.400 everything was made of gold back then in Ya, And um, 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:03.320 she had her feet kind of wrapped up, I guess, 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:08.240 like a ballerina or sometime. And he apparently got very 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:13.280 very excited at this, visibly excited, so much so that, um, 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:15.880 the other ladies of the court noticed this. Did you 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:19.800 say visibly excited? Visibly excited? Um, yes, if you know 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:23.640 what I mean. I would imagine, hey, this guy's been 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:27.000 dead a thousand years, like all all slander and defamations 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:29.280 like out the window. It's like it was a rocking time. 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:31.480 It was the Southern Tank Dynasty. It was you never 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:33.600 know what's gonna happen. Yeah, it made Caligula look like 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:38.880 watching it as an adult, Yeah boring. Yeah. So um 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:42.400 so really the lee you was very much entranced by 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:44.839 this enough that other women in the court noticed it 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:47.839 and they started wrapping their feet as well, and it 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:49.640 just kind of took off from there, and it took 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:54.640 a weird turn pretty early on. Uh what was the turn? Well, 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:57.960 the turn is originally apparently the first the woman who 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:00.359 started this whole thing just kind of wrapped her feet 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:03.560 and bandages. Yeah to too. I guess. Oh, okay, I 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:07.120 see what you mean that turn. It's a literal turn. Yeah. Well, 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:10.400 it became a status thing at first because wealthy women 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:14.240 did it, and um, then it sort of spread and 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:17.640 and and it also would end up preventing women from 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:20.360 doing like manual labor. Well, not prevent but it made 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:22.320 it tougher. So it was sort of a status thing 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:24.160 that meant like, if you had the bound feet round out, 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:26.080 they're working in the fields, I don't even have to 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:31.320 throw home. But then it spread throughout China and only 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:34.400 a few places, actually it was more than this article 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:36.800 led on and did some more research on that. I 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:39.000 saw like where fifty to sixty percent of the women 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:41.440 ended up binding their feet in China. And this says 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:45.240 like acent except in these provinces. Well I think they 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:49.120 were saying about close to a of the higher classes. Okay, 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:52.720 but yeah, there was so maybe about half of the 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:57.480 Chinese population total. Yeah, that makes sense. So the strange 0:05:57.480 --> 0:05:59.680 turn it took, though, was to go from simply wrapping 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:05.040 their eat to actually the binding process, which is malforming 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:07.760 your feet at a young age like four to seven 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:11.880 years old for life, to where when your shoe is off. 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:14.840 It looks like you're wearing your foot looks like a 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:19.719 high heel. You're disfigured. Yeah, you can't walk very well. Um, 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:23.559 you can't again, you can't work in the fields. Um. 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:26.680 And your your foot has been brought to a point 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:32.719 basically that's ideally three inches long, three inches like that's it, 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:37.120 and it's pointed. And you do this by training your 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:41.880 foot and your bones too to deform. Yeah. And when 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:43.719 I say it looks like a high heel, like, your 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:47.240 foot looks like a shoe, Like the heel is separate 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:50.320 from the rest of the foot, and a big block 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:53.039 that looks like the heel of a shoe. And the 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:56.560 foot is permanently arched and pointy, and the toes are 0:06:56.600 --> 0:07:00.360 cold under and it's just if you look at pictures 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:03.080 of this, it's horrific looking. Yeah. And it was so 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:07.120 um entrenched in the Chinese culture that when it was 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:11.440 outlawed for I guess the first time in nine um, 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:14.800 it continued on and it took the Communists taking over 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:17.600 to really get rid of it, and footbinding went the 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:25.000 way of disco. Um by just practical necessity, UM, women 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:26.920 had to work in the field and if you had 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:29.920 bound feet, well you're in big trouble. Yeah, well the 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:31.640 end of it. Should we talk about the end now 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:35.000 or should we do it later. Let's do it now. Okay, 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:37.520 let's just mess with the structure the end of it. 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:39.240 There were a lot of factors at play. One was 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:44.720 Western missionaries came over there for the first time and said, yeah, 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:47.280 you know, this is really not what the rest of 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:49.920 the world is doing, and it doesn't make you look 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:53.400 good by the way. Uh, social Darwinists got on it 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:56.520 and like, yeah, you know what, we're not going to 0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:00.440 survive as a country because like half of our ppulation 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:03.520 is hobbled. Essentially, It's like this is gonna be really 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:06.840 bad for business one day, and so they mounted like 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:11.280 a real campaign, like an education campaign, which is really 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:15.840 unusual back then. And uh, they had three phases to it. 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:18.440 One was that it made you look bad and look 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:21.400 strange to the rest of the world too. That taught 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:24.680 the advantages of having normal feet, like walking without pain. 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:30.160 And then they formed um natural foot societies where people 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:32.600 would pledge not to do this to their daughters or 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:35.360 allow their daughter to marry a son, or or allow 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:37.920 their son to marry a girl. Who had bound feet, 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:39.880 because that was one of the big deals. If you 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:42.720 didn't have bound feet, then guys would just pass you over. 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:48.079 That's what it took to finally like eradicated. When was that, Uh, 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:51.480 that was was that after the nineteen twelve outlaw or 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:56.400 the no it was leading up to that was formally outlawed, 0:08:56.400 --> 0:08:59.360 but they had government inspectors that would come around and 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:02.240 make sure you weren't binding feet any longer, and they 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:04.160 would like hide girls that they still want to do. 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:07.920 So it's like really oppressive and weird because that campaign 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:11.240 that you just described is basically point for point trying 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:15.040 to undo a thousand years of custom like if you 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:19.000 had unbound feet, like natural feet, you were considered a freak. 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:22.280 They were ugly, there was something wrong with you. And 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:25.040 even more to the point, uh, no man would marry 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:30.439 you because bound feet were so idolized in Chinese culture. 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:35.880 Um that if you were just totally plain or even 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:39.360 horrendously ugly and every other way, but I really knock 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.840 out bound feet like that was enough for you. You 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:48.840 were a butterfly, You're gonna do pretty good. That's um yeah, 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:50.640 I mean it's hard to believe now, but when you 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:53.400 see these photos in like the X rays and stuff. 0:09:53.440 --> 0:10:17.760 It's just like total deformation. Yeah, so let's talk about this. 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:22.760 There's there's an actual process, fairly straightforward, although extremely painful 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:26.559 and dangerous. Um. If you, like I think you said, 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:30.320 you you grab like your four year old daughter, you 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:33.760 say it's time prepare for a lifetime of pain and 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:37.120 suffering starting now. And you take your feet and you 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:40.400 soak them in hot water for a few hours in 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:43.120 animal blood too. Oh yeah, what did that do? The 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:45.720 same thing? Softened? It softened up? Okay, so like that 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:48.319 was the whole purposes of the soaking was to soften 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:50.959 the skin, make it more pliable, and I imagine the 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:54.360 muscles too. Um. And then after the soaking you would 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:57.200 scrape away any dead skin. And then after that their 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:01.440 toenails were clipped, you know, super short, so they're still kids. 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:03.800 Are like, Okay, I don't really like the tonio clipping part, 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:06.800 but the foot soak more than makes up for it. Um, 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:08.840 And boy do I really It turns out I like 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:12.840 animal blood, so can my feet in it? And then um, 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:16.679 the the either their mom or maybe a learned woman 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:19.400 in the village would say, all right, now we're going 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:22.840 to start bending your foot. Ye. Who imagine these ladies too, 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:24.640 if they were the village lady that did it, they 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:27.640 probably didn't take much guph No, probably not. You know, 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:30.000 they probably don't mess around. Imagine they came in there 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:32.360 and just sort of took care of business like they've 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:36.920 heard it all before. But for his is grizzly and 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:41.200 grotesque or procedure. It's actually a delicate procedure too, because 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:44.520 if if you can wrap your mind around less, there's 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:48.240 ways to do it wrong that can lead to problems. Good, 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:51.240 there's actual risk factors. So uh, the one other thing 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:53.680 I left out was a sprinkled talc in there to 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:56.880 keep it from perspiring because you wanted to be dry. 0:11:57.040 --> 0:11:59.480 And then they start bending things right, yeah, Well then 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:03.560 the cotton comes out the bandages about two inches uh wide, 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:06.520 about ten feet long, and they would soak those in 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:09.600 the hot water and blood and herbs as well, because 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:12.000 they want those to shrink up. It's all about shrinking. 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:14.680 They want those to shrink up. After they're applied to 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:17.839 the feet. Um and then the old lady comes up 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:23.280 and she folds the little four toes that were just clipped, 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:26.280 not the big toe under as far as she can 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:29.160 and then starts to do little figure eights to keep 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:34.400 them in place. You leave the big toe exposed, yes, 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:37.480 and you leave the big toe exposed in the heel exposed, 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:41.240 and you just cinch those little front toes under. They 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:45.040 break the toes, it breaks the foot bones. It sounds 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:48.640 horrific because it is. And it brings the heel closer 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:51.319 towards the ball of the foot. So the point of 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:54.800 your feet is now your big toe, The slightly wider 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:57.040 part behind it is the ball of your foot, and 0:12:57.080 --> 0:12:59.800 then behind that is your heel, and underneath it all 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:03.240 your four poor, poor little toasts and the top of 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:06.760 your foot is that this really unreasonable, odd looking arch. 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:09.720 And because that's like you're in a high heel. Yeah. 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:13.920 By making it arched, you're bringing your allowing that distance 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:16.360 that was once between the ball of the foot and 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:19.200 the heel to go up rather than between the two. 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:22.000 You're bringing them together. And so all this has just 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:24.440 been done to a four year old four years probably 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:28.040 crying in pain. And after you've finished with the bandages, um, 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:31.560 the old lady or the mom would probably sew them because, 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:33.280 especially if you're dealing with a four year old it's 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:36.440 going to try to get these things off. Um. And 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:39.319 then they say, all right, start walking. Yeah, they put 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:42.880 a little shoe on there, and that the first steps 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:45.880 with these things. And imagine many steps after order excruciating, 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:50.080 the painful. Yeah you know. Well yeah, um, here's the 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:54.240 here's the craziest part. If you ask me, you do 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:58.319 this every day for years, well every couple of days, okay, 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:00.120 every day or every other day is what I them 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:02.640 to diminish it. Yet for a couple of years. It 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:05.559 takes a couple of a few years for these things 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:09.560 to be fully deformed into what are called the lotus 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:13.600 petals or new moons or whatever. Because it's a bandage, 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:16.160 you know, you you unbind and they actually would like 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:21.560 need the broken foot, keep it broken and uh dry 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:24.880 it all out real good because infection, like the toes 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:26.760 would cut into the foot if they weren't clipped properly. 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:30.120 So infection and gang green it's too tight all big 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:33.440 threats to like losing their feet, right, because if you wrap, 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:35.760 if you wrap them too tight, they can become gangrenous 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:38.080 because you get gang green, which is a massive loss 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:42.800 of dead tissue UM due to to poor circulation UM. 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:44.880 So the foot could just fall off. And like you 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:46.680 were saying, if you don't clip the toe nails, chuck, 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:49.160 like you have to do that every day or every 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:52.200 time you you unwrap and then wrap your feet. And 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:55.000 then even worse than that, if you didn't wrap them 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:58.200 pretty quickly after you bathe them every day or the 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:01.400 other day, um, the it could start to lose their shape, 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:07.000 which apparently was as painful as in the initial footbinding procedure. Yeah, 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:09.320 like once your foot has started to take shape, if 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:10.720 you wanted to say, now you know what, I don't 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:14.080 want to do this anymore. It's just as painful for 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:17.440 the foot to undo itself because it's already like malformed. 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:20.440 But there was like you didn't think that. I think 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:24.440 once once this happened to you from your mom or whatever, 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:26.640 and you grew a little older and you started to 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:29.920 take over for yourself and you were bathing and wrapping 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:33.080 your own street every other day. You understood why you 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:37.600 were doing this because footbinding was so important that you 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:41.200 could be just completely poverty stricken and some rich dude 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:43.280 would still be like, I like your feet a lot, 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:49.000 and yeah, I can't even breathe right now because your 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:52.680 feet are so deformed, um that I want to marry you. 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:56.320 It's so weird. Yeah. So there's uh and beyond being 0:15:56.840 --> 0:16:00.320 wrong and gross and oppressive and all that stuff, it 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:03.760 was just so odd to me that that was like 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:07.160 a turn on. Yeah, and man, it was a turn on. 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:11.520 Like footbinding was highly highly erotic. You guys like nice feet, 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:17.000 trust me, I get that, but these deformed Uh, I 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:19.040 just don't get it. But this is pretty much a 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:22.680 national foot fetish. Yeah. Um. And it was nationalized, it 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:26.200 was cultural, and it was extraordinarily widespread. Like we said, 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:28.480 about three billion women over the course of a thousand 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:32.480 years um bound their feet. Yeah. And it had a 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:36.040 lot of odd effects side effects that went along with it. Um, 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:40.480 when three billion people do something that hobbles them, there 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:42.560 are going to be some weird repercussions. Yeah that you 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:46.440 don't think about. Um. One thing it definitely did was 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:51.360 it foster dominance over women because of the simple fact 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:55.480 that if a woman's being beaten, she can't run away. Um, 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:57.920 a woman can't travel very far period, so they're going 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:01.200 to hang around their village, in their house, and so 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:04.560 it just you know, it's like hobbling somebody all of 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:07.280 a sudden they can't get around as well, so they're 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:11.920 just dependent on you, right, and they really aren't traveling much, 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:14.560 not a lot of traveling going on on your feet 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:17.320 are bound. Um. And then also the fact that you 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:21.720 they have women with bound feet had trouble walking UM 0:17:22.040 --> 0:17:26.360 meant that the architecture of China kind of was created 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:29.080 to help this out. Like they had to lean on 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:33.720 windows or walls. I mean, so buildings were built close 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:36.920 together so the average woman could could you know, lean 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:38.959 on a wall whilst she was walking. Yeah, and there 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:42.080 weren't a lot of six story walk ups in in 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:44.919 ancient China, man, that would have been cruel. Everything was 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:47.920 one story as a result, so it yeah, it had 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:54.120 a weird impact on the architecture in uh what else colonization, Yeah, 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:57.399 that was a really big one that yeah. Um, you know, 0:17:57.680 --> 0:17:59.879 most people realize that China didn't do a lot of 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:02.560 exploring um while the rest of the world was. It 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:05.720 just kind of isolated itself and shut itself off. And 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:08.680 one of the um reasons given for that was that 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:13.680 the women were foot bound and they couldn't travel like um, 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:18.679 women in other countries who could walk normally did UM. 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:22.440 So with the Chinese women unable to travel, and um, 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:26.280 I guess see the sites. Uh, their men didn't want 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:29.879 to leave them, so they stayed at home. Yeah. And 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:34.080 actually the areas that didn't practice footbinding are the ones 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:36.520 that actually did go out and colonize other places, like 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:40.320 the Philippines. They were so Southern China. Yeah, or the 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:42.280 Old West like every Great Old West show has, like 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:47.119 the one Chinese immigrant family with the ponytails. Yeah. Um. 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:49.800 The article points out, like we're being hard on it 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:53.440 because it's easy to look and today it's some antiquated 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:57.640 practice is really cruel and unusual and weird. But um, 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:01.119 at the time they in the women you know, wanted 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:04.760 their feet bound. There were great bonds between the generations 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:06.960 because it was such a cultural thing between the women. 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:10.080 They would sew their shoes together. Um. I listened to 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:13.159 this one MPR Fresh Air that interviewed someone some of 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:16.399 these old Chinese ladies that still you know, are some 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:19.840 of the last surviving ones, and a couple of them said, 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:21.600 you know, I really regret it now, it's been a 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:25.080 lifetime of pain. But most of them said, no, we 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:27.359 wanted to do it. And this was I'm very proud 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:29.400 of the fact that we did this. Yeah, and these 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:32.440 are these are women who are confronted with the outside 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:35.120 world and they still feel pride about their bound feet. 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:37.560 You can imagine how much pride a woman had in 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:40.840 her bound feet while it was the norm, you know, 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:43.600 because it was basically the norm in China, and these 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:46.239 women weren't going out anywhere else. So if you had 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:48.240 really nice bound feet, that was a huge point of 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:51.440 pride for you. So one of the other weird things 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:55.560 we need to talk about is sexy time, because we 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:58.479 talked about foot fetishes and things, but it really like 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:03.040 something happen and in the water at this time where 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:07.480 Chinese men really really got into it and they would 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:10.200 take the shoe off in these odd deformed feet and 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:13.160 they would like do weird things like drink the water 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:16.000 that they bathe their feet in, or put nuts between 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:20.040 the toes and eat the nuts from their toes, and uh, 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:23.200 just really odd things. I also read that it became 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:28.080 a another orifice. I guess if you can imagine, oh 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:33.280 really yeah, and even outside of that, I guess one 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:35.080 of the more normal things to do is to bury 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:37.760 your face in the center of the bottom of the 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:43.240 foot and really get like a good whiff boat motor boat. Notice, 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:46.840 smell it and then chuck. We should point out that 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:49.800 if you're doing that, if you're burying your face in 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:54.600 the deformed foot of a foot bound woman. Um, one 0:20:54.600 --> 0:20:57.359 of the things that happens pretty commonly when your feet 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:02.400 are bound is that they developed pustules that break and stink. 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:06.600 And so there is a I read one guy a 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:10.800 contemporary report from several centuries ago saying like, there's no 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:13.520 other smell like it in the world, Nothing as sexy 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:18.720 as a deformed foot with leaking, stinky pustules. Yeah. So um, yeah, 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:21.159 there was a definite fetish that grew up around it. 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:24.840 There was a UM at least one sex manual released 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:28.560 with I think forty eight different um things to do 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:35.160 with um and uh, there the shoes. We didn't talk 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:37.800 about the shoes if they play a role in that 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:41.480 eroticism as well. All about the strengthening of the muscles, 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:45.359 that's a big part. Yeah, yeah, apparently the there was 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:47.880 a theory at least that because they had to walk 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:52.240 so funny and oddly, that their vaginal muscles were extra 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:56.920 strong and thus more pleasurable to the man. So um. 0:21:57.000 --> 0:22:00.320 And then so the average woman with foot bound shoe 0:22:00.800 --> 0:22:04.760 or with with bound feet. I'm sorry everybody, Um, she 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:07.000 had at least four pairs of shoes you had to 0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:10.119 or else like there was no point in in having 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:12.280 bound feet. You had to have one for each season. 0:22:12.480 --> 0:22:15.240 Ideally you had at least four pair per season. So 0:22:15.359 --> 0:22:18.439 sixteen some women had hundreds of these, and they were 0:22:18.480 --> 0:22:21.600 designed to really like show off, like, hey, look at 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:23.880 my bound feet, buddy. You know that's what they were 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:26.639 there for. Um. But there was one specific one that 0:22:26.720 --> 0:22:31.280 were always read. They were your wedding shoes, and inside 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:36.800 there was erotic embroidery which the husband, the new husband 0:22:36.840 --> 0:22:39.800 and the new wife would look at and like try 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:41.960 out together. It's kind of an instruction manual for the 0:22:42.240 --> 0:22:45.760 bride by her mother or the women of the town, 0:22:46.040 --> 0:22:48.320 like just do this. Here's a picture of what you're 0:22:48.320 --> 0:22:51.000 supposed to do tonight. Yeah, and slippers period. I think 0:22:51.040 --> 0:22:53.720 we're just it was almost like the lingerie of the time, 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:58.520 because they would the bedroom slippers were more like uh embroidered, 0:22:58.560 --> 0:23:01.560 like more sexily as well in just your average like 0:23:01.840 --> 0:23:03.120 you know, I gotta go to the shop and pick 0:23:03.200 --> 0:23:07.880 up some rice shoes, you know. So the Chinese communists 0:23:07.880 --> 0:23:10.840 came along now and his comrades and said, you know what, 0:23:11.000 --> 0:23:13.199 you're a woman. We don't care. Get to work digging 0:23:13.200 --> 0:23:15.800 ditches and oh your bound feet hurt you. Well, I 0:23:15.800 --> 0:23:18.560 guess you're gonna starve because we give food based on 0:23:18.600 --> 0:23:20.560 how much work you did. If you don't do the work, 0:23:20.600 --> 0:23:24.639 you're gonna starve death. That led to the real conclusion 0:23:24.680 --> 0:23:27.840