WEBVTT - How Foot Binding Worked 0:00:01.040 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to you Stuff you should Know from house Stuff 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:12.960 Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:16.200 Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's over there, 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:19.480 and uh, it's time for stuff you should know. Everybody 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:25.560 settled down, buckle in, get ready. Hey, congratulations to Kristin Bell. 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:29.040 Stuff you should know. Celebrity fan Kristen Bell and her 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:32.400 husband Dak Sheppard had their baby. Oh hey, congratulations, A 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:35.960 big congratulations to you. And uh, I don't know if Mr. 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:39.960 I thought you're gonna congratulate her on atter movie Owen, 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:42.800 the Veronica Mars movie. Well, congratulations on that. My wife 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:46.040 is very much looking forward to that, and your wife 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:49.080 is looking forward to meeting the baby. She's on her 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:53.200 way right now. Kristen Bell's locking the doors. Oh my god. 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:57.760 What started out is small fascination with their show and tragedy, 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:01.560 dangerous made for TV movie, and anyway, I just want 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:04.240 to say congratulations. Yeah, that's nice if you chuck sure, 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:09.600 Uh I got no congratulations over here. Yeah, interesting that 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:13.960 I tied that to this podcast on like female torture essentially, 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:17.160 do you think there's something to that? Well, we live 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:18.880 in a world now where we don't have to worry 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:21.559 about although I think they had a son where any 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:25.240 little baby's feet being binded, I guess not babies, but 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:31.399 four or five year olds were bound. Yeah, yeah, bound, binded, bound, Okay, 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:36.120 because the feet were bound? Yes, yes, yeah. Um, do 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:38.360 you think we should explain to everybody what we're talking 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:41.880 about foot binding? Yeah? I'm glad you. Um, thank you. 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:44.600 Congratulated Kristen Bell because I didn't really have much of 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:50.560 an intro for this one. Um, because it's just so fascinating. 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:53.280 I feel like we should just kind of dive right in. Yeah, 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:58.080 fascinating and horrible and like oddly impactful and areas I 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:01.440 never would have considered. Yeah, so we should say that 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:04.840 over the course of about a thousand years, from roughly 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:09.440 nine seventy until about the nineteen fifties, like almost on 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:13.520 the dot a thousand years, about three billion women in 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:19.600 China um bound their feet to basically train them to 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:25.959 become small and pointy in a really bizarre custom that 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:28.360 just kind of came out of nowhere and stuck around 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:32.680 again for about a thousand years, voluntarily deforming their feet, well, 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:35.520 at the very least their mothers and grandmothers voluntarily deformed 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:39.440 their feet for them. Yeah, it's a very good point actually, Um, 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:41.760 but at some point they had to take over, and 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:45.880 I guess then it became voluntary. Well sure, well we'll 0:02:45.880 --> 0:02:50.400 get to all that, okay, spoilers. So basically this was 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:54.960 purposeful deformation of the human foot, the human female foot, 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:59.560 in order to attract men. There was a standard of 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:02.360 beauty of bound foot. Um, and we'll we'll describe it 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:07.040 in a minute. But um, the idea, the whole thing 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:10.040 kind of came from they think about, like I said, 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:14.680 a d in the court of an emperor named Lee 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:21.079 You and Lee you had a favorite girlfriend, ballerina girl. Yeah, 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:24.040 and apparently he saw her dancing once on a golden 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:28.000 lotus pedestal because everything was made of gold back then 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:30.640 in China, and um, she had her feet kind of 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:34.200 wrapped up, I guess, like a ballerina or something. And 0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:39.600 he apparently got very very excited at this, visibly excited, 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:42.760 so much so that um, the other ladies of the 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:47.600 court noticed this. Did you say visibly excited? Visibly excited? Um, yes, 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:51.160 if you know what I mean, I would imagine, Hey, 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:53.680 this guy's been dead a thousand years like all all 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:56.800 slander and defamations, like out the window. It's like it 0:03:56.840 --> 0:03:59.240 was a rocking time. It's the Southern Tank Dynasty. It 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:01.400 was you never know gonna happen. Yeah, it made Caligula 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:06.000 look like watching it as an adult, yeah boring. Yeah. 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:10.000 So um so really the ly you was very much 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:12.680 entranced by this enough that other women in the court 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:15.839 noticed it and they started wrapping their feet as well. Yeah, 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:17.520 and it just kind of took off from there, and 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:22.120 it took a weird turn pretty early on. Uh what 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:24.680 was the turn? Well, the turn is originally apparently the 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:27.720 first the woman who started this whole thing just kind 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:31.760 of wrapped her feet in bandages to too. I guess, Oh, okay, 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:35.360 I see what you mean that turn. It's a literal turn. Yeah. Well, 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:38.640 it became a status thing at first because wealthy women 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:42.480 did it, and um then it sort of spread and 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:45.880 and and it also would end up preventing women from 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:48.600 doing like manual labor. Well, not prevent but it made 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:50.520 it tougher. So it was sort of a status thing 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:52.400 that meant like, if you had the bound feetunt out 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:54.320 they're working in the fields, I don't even have to 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:59.560 throw home. But then it spread throughout China and only 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.640 a few places. Actually it was more than this article 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:05.039 led on and did some more research on that. I 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:07.640 saw like where fifty six of the women ended up 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:11.280 binding their feet in China, and this says like except 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:14.159 in these provinces. Well, I think they were saying about 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:18.719 close to a of the higher classes. But yeah, there 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:23.599 was so maybe about half of the Chinese population total. Yeah, 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:26.400 that makes sense. So the strange turn it took though, 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:29.600 was to go from simply wrapping their feet to actually 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:34.039 the binding process, which is malforming your feet at a 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:38.039 young age like four to seven years old for life, 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:40.920 to where when your shoe was off, it looks like 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:45.279 you're wearing your foot looks like a high heel. You're disfigured. Yeah, 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:49.200 you can't walk very well. Um, you can't again, you 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:53.400 can't work in the fields. Um, and your your foot 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:57.279 has been brought to a point basically that's ideally three 0:05:57.279 --> 0:06:02.680 inches long, three inches like that's it, and it's pointed. 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:06.040 And you do this by training your foot and your 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:10.680 bones two deform. Yeah. And when I say it looks 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:12.960 like a high heel, like your foot looks like a 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:16.800 shoe like the heel is separate from the rest of 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:19.960 the foot, and a big block that looks like the 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:22.679 heel of a shoe, and the foot is permanently arched 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:26.760 and pointy, and the toes are cold under and it's 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:30.520 just if you look at pictures to this, it's horrific looking. Yeah. 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:34.400 And it was so um entrenched in the Chinese culture 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:37.279 that when it was outlawed for I guess the first 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:41.280 time in nine um, it continued on and it took 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:44.200 the Communists taking over to really get rid of it, 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:49.279 and footbinding went the way of disco. Um by just 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:54.640 practical necessity. Um. Women had to work in the field 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:58.000 and if you had bound feet, well you're in big trouble. Yeah, well, 0:06:58.080 --> 0:06:59.920 the end of it. Should we talk about the end now? 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:03.240 Should we do it later? Let's do it now? Okay, 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:06.039 let's just mess with the end of that. There were 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:08.560 a lot of factors at play. One was Western missionaries 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:12.960 came over there for the first time and said, yeah, 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:15.520 you know, this is really not what the rest of 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:18.160 the world is doing, and it doesn't make you look 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:21.600 good by the way, uh, social Darwinists got on it, 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:24.680 and we're like, yeah, you know what, we're not going 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:28.080 to survive as a country because like half of our 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:31.560 population is hobbled. Essentially, it's like this is gonna be 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:34.960 really bad for business one day. And so they mounted 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:39.280 like a real campaign, like an education campaign, which is 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:43.840 really unusual back then. And uh, they had three phases 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:45.880 to it. One was that it made you look bad 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:48.760 and look strange to the rest of the world too. 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:52.360 That taught the advantages of having normal feat like walking 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:57.480 without pain. And then they formed um natural foot societies 0:07:57.800 --> 0:07:59.840 where people would pledge not to do this to their 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:03.120 matters or allow their daughter to marry a son, or 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:05.520 or allow their son to marry a girl who had 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:07.920 bound feet, because that was one of the big deals. 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:10.280 If you didn't have bound feet, then guys would just 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:13.040 pass you over, right. That's what it took to finally 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:18.040 like eradicated. When was that, Uh, that was was that 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:21.520 after the nineteen twelve outlaw or the no it was 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:25.520 leading up to that l was formally outlawed. They had 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:28.480 government inspectors that would come around and make sure that 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:30.760 you weren't binding feet any longer, and they would like 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:33.160 hide girls that they still wanted to do. So it's 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:36.319 like really oppressive and weird because that campaign that you 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:40.239 just described is basically point for point trying to undo 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:44.839 a thousand years of custom like if you had unbound feet, 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:48.320 like natural feet, you were considered a freak. They were ugly, 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:51.080 there was something wrong with you. And even more to 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:54.840 the point, uh, no man would marry you. Yeah, because 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:59.760 bound feet were so idolized in Chinese culture. Um that 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:05.400 if you were just totally plain or even horrendously ugly 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:08.360 in every other way. But I really knock out bound 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:11.679 feet like that was enough for you. You were butterfly. 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:17.199 You're gonna do pretty good. That's hilarious. Um yeah, I 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:19.120 mean it's hard to believe now, but when you see 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:21.839 these photos in like the X rays and stuff, it's 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:25.640 just like total deformation. So let's talk about this. There's 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:32.800 there's an actual process, fairly straightforward, although extremely painful and dangerous. Um. 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:35.920 If you, like I think you said, you you grabbed 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:39.840 like your four year old daughter, you say, it's prepare 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:43.040 for a lifetime of pain and suffering right starting now. 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:45.600 And you take your feet and you soak them in 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:49.120 hot water for a few hours in animal blood too. 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:51.720 Oh yeah, what did that do? The same thing? Softened 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:53.640 It softened you up Okay, so like that was the 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:56.800 whole purposes of the soaking was to soften the skin, 0:09:56.880 --> 0:10:00.360 make it more pliable, and I imagine the muscles too. Um. 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:02.920 And then after the soaking you would scrape away any 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:05.880 dead skin. And then after that their toenails were clipped, 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:09.760 you know, super short, so they're still kids. Are like, Okay, 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:11.760 I don't really like the toneail clipping part, but the 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:14.679 foot soak more than makes up for it. Um, And 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:17.320 boy do I really It turns out I like animal blood, 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:21.160 so can my feet in it? And then um, the 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:24.480 the either their mom or maybe a learned woman in 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:27.240 the village would say all right, now we're going to 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:30.640 start bending your foot. Who imagine these ladies too. If 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:32.760 they were the village lady that did it, they probably 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:35.400 didn't take much guph No, probably not. You know, they 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:37.800 probably mess around. Imagine they came in there and just 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:40.280 sort of took care of business like they've heard it 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:46.960 all before. Is grizzly and grotesque or procedure. It's actually 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:51.120 a delicate procedure too, because if if you can wrap 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:53.320 your mind around less, there's ways to do it wrong 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:58.120 that can lead to problems. There's actual risk factors. So, uh, 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:00.000 the one other thing I left out was a sprinkle 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:02.800 talc in there to keep it from perspiring, because you 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:05.640 want it to be dry, right, And then they start 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:08.320 bending things right, yeah, Well, then the cotton comes out, 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:12.320 the bandages about two inches wide, about ten feet long, 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:15.160 and they would soak those in the hot water and 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:17.880 blood and herbs as well, because they want those to 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:20.760 shrink up. It's all about shrinking. They want those to 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:23.840 shrink up after they are applied to the feet. Um 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:28.680 and then the old lady comes up and she folds 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:31.200 the little four toes that were just clipped, not the 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:34.880 big toe under as far as she can, and then 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:37.520 starts to do little figure eights to keep them in place. 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:43.160 You leave the big toe exposed, yes, and you leave 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:45.440 the big toe exposed and the heel exposed, and you 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:49.680 just sense those little front toes under. They break the toes, 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:53.720 It breaks the foot bones. It sounds horrific because it is. 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:57.240 And it brings the heel closer towards the ball of 0:11:57.280 --> 0:12:00.200 the foot. So the point of your feet is now 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:03.320 your big toe. The slightly wider part behind it is 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:05.559 the ball of your foot, and then behind that is 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:08.520 your heel. And underneath it all are your four poor, 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:11.439 poor little toes. And the top of your foot is 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:16.400 that this really unreasonable, odd looking arch, because that's like 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:19.079 you're in a high heel. Yeah. By making it arched, 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:22.679 you're bringing your allowing that distance that was once between 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:25.120 the ball of the foot and the heel to go 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:28.200 up rather than between the two, you're bringing them together. 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:30.280 And so all this has just been done to a 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.280 four year old four years probably crying in pain. And 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:36.680 after you've finished with the bandages, um, the old lady 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:39.840 or the mom would probably sew them because, especially if 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:41.160 you're dealing with a four year old, it's going to 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:44.640 try to get these things off. Um. And then they 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:47.280 say all right, start walking. Yeah, they put a little 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:51.160 shoe on there, and that the first steps with these things, 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:55.319 and imagine many steps after order excruciatingly painful. Yeah you know. 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:59.200 Well yeah, Um, here's the here's the craziest part. If 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:04.520 you ask me, you do this every day for years, well, 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:06.920 every couple of days, okay, every day or every other 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:09.160 day is what I've kind of diminish it for a 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:11.840 couple of years. It takes a couple of a few 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:15.959 years for these things to be fully deformed into what 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:19.840 are called the lotus petals or new moons or whatever, 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:22.760 because it's a bandage. You know, you you unbind and 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:26.199 they actually wouldn't like need the broken foot, keep it 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:31.479 broken and uh dry it all out real good because infection, 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:33.640 like the toes would cut into the foot if they 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:36.480 weren't cliped properly. So infection and gang green that's too 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:40.280 tight all big threats to like losing their feet, right, 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:42.280 because if you wrap, if you wrap them too tight, 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:44.800 they can become gangrenous because you get gang green, which 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:48.520 is a massive loss of dead tissue um due to 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:51.920 to poor circulation UM. So the foot could just fall off. 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:54.400 And like you're saying, if you don't clip the toe nails, chuck, 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:56.839 like you have to do that every day or every 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:59.840 time you you unwrap and then wrap your feet. And 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:03.000 even worse than that, if you didn't wrap them pretty 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:07.280 quickly after you bathed them every day or the other day, um, 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:10.200 they could start to lose their shape, which apparently was 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:15.160 as painful as the initial footbinding procedure. Like once your 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:17.640 foot has started to take shape, if you wanted to say, 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:19.360 now you know, I don't want to do this anymore. 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:23.120 It's just as painful for the foot to undo itself 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:27.000 because it's already like malformed. But there was like you 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:29.960 didn't think that. I think once once this happened to 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:33.200 you from your mom or whatever, and you grew a 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:35.520 little older and you started to take over for yourself 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:38.520 and you were bathing and wrapping your own feet every 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:41.960 other day. You understood why you were doing this because 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:47.040 footbinding was so important that you could be just completely 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:49.600 poverty stricken and some rich dude would still be like, 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:54.360 I like your feet a lot, and yeah, I can't 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:58.040 even breathe right now because your feet are so deformed, 0:14:58.760 --> 0:15:02.000 um that I want to marry you. It's so weird. Yeah, 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:05.840 so there's uh and beyond being wrong and gross and 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:08.920 oppressive and all that stuff, it was just so odd 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:12.920 to me that that was like a turn on. Yeah, 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:16.120 and man, it was a turn on. Like footbinding was 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:19.800 highly highly erotic. That's like nice feet, trust me, I 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:25.560 get that. But the deformed, uh, I just don't get it. 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:29.200 But this is pretty much a national foot fetish um 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:31.880 and it was nationalized, it was cultural, and it was 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:35.200 extraordinarily widespread, Like we said, about three billion women over 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:38.800 the course of a thousand years UM bound their feet. Yeah, 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:42.040 and it had a lot of odd effects side effects 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:44.920 that went along with it. Um, when three billion people 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:48.720 do something that hobbles them, there are going to be 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:51.240 some weird repercussions. Yeah that you don't think about. Um. 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:56.520 One thing it definitely did was it foster dominance over 0:15:56.560 --> 0:16:01.280 women because of the simple fact that a woman's being beaten, 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:04.520 she can't run away. Um. A woman can't travel very 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:07.240 far period, so they're going to hang around their village, 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:10.320 in their house, and so it just you know, it's 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:13.800 like hobbling somebody all of a sudden, they can't get 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:16.600 around as well, so they're just dependent on you, right, 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:20.840 and they really aren't traveling much. Not a lot of 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:23.880 traveling going on in your future bound um. And then 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:26.720 also the fact that you they have women with bound 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:31.720 feet had trouble walking UM meant that the architecture of 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:35.720 China kind of was created to help this out. Like 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:38.800 they had to lean on windows or walls. I mean, 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.600 so buildings were built close together so the average woman 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:45.600 could could you know, lean on a wall whilst she 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:47.520 was walking. Yeah, and there weren't a lot of six 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:51.360 story walk ups and in ancient China man that would 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:54.160 have been cruel. Everything was one story as a result, 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:57.440 so it Yeah, it had a weird impact on the 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:02.160 architecture and uh what else. Colonization, Yeah, that was a 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:05.879 really big one that Yeah. Um, you know, most people 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:08.800 realize that China didn't do a lot of exploring, um, 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:10.760 while the rest of the world was. It just kind 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:13.840 of isolated itself and shut itself off. And one of 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:17.399 the um reasons given for that was that the women 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:22.080 were foot bound and they couldn't travel like um, women 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:26.680 in other countries who could walk normally did um. So 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:30.240 with the Chinese women unable to travel, and um, I 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:34.000 guess see the sites, Uh, their men didn't want to 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:38.760 leave them, so they stayed at home. And actually the 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.879 areas that didn't practice foot binding are the ones that 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:44.960 actually did go out and colonize other places, like the Philippines. 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:48.200 They were so old Southern China, yeah, or the Old 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:50.080 West like every Great Old West show has, like the 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:54.960 one Chinese immigrant family with the ponytails. Yeah. Um. The 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:57.840 article points out, like we're being hard on it because 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:01.159 it's easy to look it's to day. It's some antiquated 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:05.320 practice is really cruel and unusual and weird, but um, 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:08.800 at the time, they and the women you know, wanted 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:12.440 their feet bound. There were great bonds between the generations 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:14.639 because it was such a cultural thing between the women, 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:17.760 they would sew their shoes together. Um. I listened to 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:20.679 this one MPR Fresh Air that interviewed some of some 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:23.840 of these old Chinese ladies that still, you know, are 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:27.040 some of the last surviving ones, and a couple of 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:29.120 them said, you know, I really regret it now. It's 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:32.520 been a lifetime of pain. But most of them said, no, 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:34.760 we wanted to do it, and this was I'm very 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:36.879 proud of the fact that we did this. Yeah, and 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:39.600 these are these are women who are confronted with the 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:42.800 outside world and they still feel pride about their bound feet. 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:45.240 You can imagine how much pride a woman had in 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:48.520 her bound feet while it was the norm, you know, 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:51.280 because it was basically the norm in China, and these 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:53.919 women weren't going out anywhere else. So if you had 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:55.919 really nice bound feet, that was a huge point of 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:59.119 pride for you. So one of the other weird things 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:03.240 we need to talk about is sexy time, because we 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:06.159 talked about foot fetishes and things, but it really like 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:11.680 something happened in the water at this time where Chinese 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:15.440 men really really got into it, and they would take 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:18.040 the shoe off in these odd deformed feet, and they 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:21.040 would like do weird things like drink the water that 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:23.840 they bathe their feet in, or put nuts between the 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:27.399 toes and beat the nuts from their toes, and uh, 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:30.880 just really odd things. I also read that it became 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:35.760 a another orifice. I guess if you can imagine, oh 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:40.959 really Yeah, and even outside of that, I guess one 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:42.760 of the more normal things to do is to bury 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:45.439 your face in the center of the bottom of the 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:49.440 foot and really get like a good whif foot boat 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:54.040 boat not to smell it and then chuck. We should 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:56.520 point out that if you're doing that, if you're burying 0:19:56.520 --> 0:20:01.960 your face in the deformed foot of a foot bound woman, Um, 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:04.800 one of the things that happens pretty commonly when your 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:09.159 feet are bound is that they developed pustules that break 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:13.920 and stink, and so there is a I read one 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:18.000 guy a contemporary report from several centuries ago saying like, 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:20.680 there's no other smell like it in the world, Nothing 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:25.600 as sexy as a deformed foot with leaking, stinky pustules. Yeah. 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:28.120 So um, Yeah, there was a definite fetish that grew 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:30.880 up around it. There was a UM at least one 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:35.560 sex manual released with I think forty eight different UM 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:42.240 things to do with the um and uh there the shoes. 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:45.040 We didn't talk about the shoes that they play a 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:48.520 role in that eroticism as well, all about the strengthening 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:52.160 of the muscles. That's a big part. Yeah, yeah, apparently 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:55.000 the there was a theory at least that because they 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:58.520 had to walk so funny and oddly, that their vaginal 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:02.800 muscles were extra strong and thus more pleasurable to the 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:07.639 man UM. And then so the average woman with footbound 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:12.240 shoe or with with bound feet, I'm sorry everybody, UM, 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:14.560 she had at least four pairs of shoes you had 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:17.320 to or else like there was no point in in 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:19.960 having bound feet. You had to have one for each season. 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:23.480 Ideally you had at least four pair per seasons sixteen. 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:26.440 Some women had hundreds of these and they were designed 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:29.399 to really like show off, like, hey, look at my 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:32.680 bound feet, buddy. You know that's what they were there for. UM. 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:35.200 But there was one specific one that were always read. 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:42.240 They were your wedding shoes, and inside there was erotic embroidery, 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:45.679 which the husband, the new husband, and the new wife 0:21:45.920 --> 0:21:48.359 would look at and like try out together. It's kind 0:21:48.359 --> 0:21:51.680 of an instruction manual for the bride by her mother 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:54.920 or the women of the town, like just do this. 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:57.000 Here's a picture of what you're supposed to do tonight. 0:21:57.400 --> 0:22:00.159 And slippers period. I think we're just was I'm like 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:03.719 the lingerie of the time, because they would the bedroom 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:07.480 slippers were more like uh, embroidered, like more sexily as 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:10.000 well than just your average like you know, I gotta 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:11.919 go to the shop and pick up some rice shoes, 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:16.600 you know. So the Chinese communists came along now and 0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:19.280 his comrades and said, you know what, you're a woman. 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:22.040 We don't care. Get to work digging ditches and oh 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:24.040 your bound feet hurt you. Well, I guess you're gonna 0:22:24.080 --> 0:22:26.880 starve because we give food based on how much work 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:28.680 you did. If you don't do the work, you're gonna 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:33.040 start it. Yet that led to the real conclusion of footbinding, 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:36.040 and apparently today they say with great authority that no 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:39.359 one does it any longer. Yeah, that's good to know. 0:22:40.640 --> 0:22:45.119 I'm surprised that it completely died out, because do you 0:22:45.160 --> 0:22:49.760 think they'd be like some remote families here there. But yeah, 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:53.760 I mean we'll welcome to the modern age. This is 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:57.280 what I say. And that's just a bizarre, strange chapter 0:22:57.920 --> 0:23:01.639 thousand year chapter in one of the most populous nations 0:23:01.680 --> 0:23:05.159 on the planet's history totes and very few people know 0:23:05.200 --> 0:23:09.720 about it. Well, now a lot more people do, right, Uh, 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:11.800