Painful Reminder
A rather horrific reminder of the "bad old days" when Chinese women's feet were bound so as to make a woman more desirable, marriageable, and to give her (and her family) higher social status. Foot binding not only crippled the women who went through the process but also crippled women in China for centuries. Being crippled by foot binding meant they had such a small role in government. It was a custom that started out to define beauty but ended up defining the way the society was. Amazing to think that this centuries old practice only came to an end around 1911!
For centuries China stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences, but in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the country was beset by civil unrest, major famines, military defeats, and foreign occupation. A... ... read more 
