[Music] Chinese foot binding was the custom of binding the feet of young girls painfully tight to prevent further growth foot binding had originated among Court dancers in early Song Dynasty but spread to upper class families and eventually became common among all classes bound feet were considered beautiful and Were Meant to make a woman's movements more feminine and dainty women bound their feet from the young age of three and continued to do so through childhood and even through [Music] adulthood girls bound their feet by breaking all four toes and wrapping them under the feet and binding them very tightly with [Music] cloth finding you usually started during the winter months so that the feet were numb and therefore the pain would not be so [Music] extreme first each foot would be soaked in a warm mixture of herbs and animal blood this is intended to soften the foot and Aid The Binding then the toenails were cut back as far as possible to prevent ingrowth and subsequent infections since the toes were to be pressed tightly into the sole of the foot to prepare her for what was to come next the girl's feet were delicately massaged cotton bandages were prepared by soaking them in the blood and Herb mixture able the size of the feet to be reduced the toes on each foot were curled under then pressed with great force downwards and squeezed into the sole of the foot until the toes [Music] broke this was all carried out without the use of pain relief and was excruciatingly painful for the girl being bound the girl's broken feet required a great deal of care and attention and they would be Unbound regularly each time the feet were Unbound they were washed toes carefully checked for injury and the nails carefully and meticulously trimmed when Unbound the broken feet were also needed to soften them and make the broken bones more flexible [Music] they were then soaked in a concoction that caused any necrotic flesh to fall [Music] off trouble walking and dangerous infections were almost always a side effect and sometimes resulted in death bound feet were once considered intensely erratic in Chinese culture and a woman with perfect Lotus feet was likely to make a more prestigious marriage another tribute of a woman with bound feet was the limitations of her mobility and therefore her inability to take part in politics social life and the World At [Music] Large the bound foot has played a prominent part in many works of literature both chines and non-chinese modern and traditional in 1997 the UC San Francisco conducted a study to see how many women still had their bound feet they asked 193 Beijing women between the ages of 70 and 80 if they bound their feet and they found that 38% of women in the ' 80s age group and 18% of the 70s age group had bound foot [Music] deformities these women are also far more likely to have fallen than women with regular feet practice of foot binding continued into the 20th century when both Chinese and Western missionaries called for reform at this point a true anti foot findinding movement emerged throughout the 20th century women had to bind their feet in secrecy now that foot binding had been banned But as time went on foot binding had died out and young girls stopped binding their feet Al [Music] together now only the tiniest percent of elderly women in China are victims of foot binding this cruel way of beauty now only exists in our history