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Unbound: China's last 'lotus feet' in pictures | Art and design

Unbound: China's last 'lotus feet' – in pictures

103 years after foot binding was banned, a few women still live with the severe deformity it caused. Jo Farrell tracked down 50 of them, all in old age, and photographed some for her book Living History: Bound Feet Women of China

Mon 15 Jun 2015 02.00 EDT Last modified on Tue 18 Oct 2022 08.36 EDT

  • Su Xi Rong, 75 in 2008, Shandong province

    She was known as the most beautiful woman in the village because of her small, well-formed, bound feet. I saw her again in November 2014. She can no longer walk very far as she has put on a lot of weight, and her small feet cannot support her. Su Xi Rong told me that because of feudal traditions, if you did not bind your feet you would not get married. If she tried to unbind her feet, her grandmother would cut a slice of skin off her toes to punish her. All photographs and captions: Jo Farrell

  • Pue Hui Ying, 76 years old in 2011, Yunnan province

    Pue’s feet were bound at seven and were briefly unbound at 12 (in 1949), as was required at that time. Unbinding hurt as it forced the women to readjust the way they stood, and walk with broken toes. Because of this, Pue has kept her feet bound to this day. An avid bowler, she told me she travelled to Kunming once a month to take part in a tournament.

  • Zhao Hua Hong, 83 years old in 2010, Shandong province

    Zhao was a very graceful woman, who had a stroke three years before I met her and could no longer speak. Her husband did all the talking. As peasant farmers, both were illiterate, so the only way to communicate was by shouting, as Zhao was partially deaf. Her feet were bound when she was 15 years old.

  • Si Yin Zhin, 90 years old in 2011

    Si Yin’s feet were the most distorted that I have seen. To me, they no longer look like feet - they have taken the shape of the shoes. Her feet had never been unbound, and she had managed to keep them hidden.

  • Huo Guan Yu, 89 years old in 2010, Shandong province

    Her sister taught her how to bind her feet when she was six years old, and they remained bound until 2010. When I asked her why she had decided to unbind her feet after so long, she said that it was because she now needs help with the binding and no one does it correctly.

  • Yang Jing é, 87 years old in 2010, Shandong province

    Yang’s feet were bound when she was five years old by her grandmother.

  • Zhang Yun Ying, 103 years old in 2014, Shandong province

    I met Zhang in November 2014. She claimed she was only 99. One of her daughters told me that Zhang felt anything older put her closer to death.

  • Ma Zhen é,

    96 years old in 2014, Shandong province She had her feet bound at seven years old. She cried so much that her grandfather complained, but he could not stop it. She unbound her feet at 30, as women would be fined if they didn’t.

  • Guo Ting Yu, 83 years old in 2010, Shandong province

    Guo’s mother was unwilling to bind her feet, so at the age of 15 she bound her own. She had watched how her own mother did it and copied her. All her small toes are broken underneath the sole, but ultimately she didn’t manage to reduce the length of the feet.Jo Farrell will talk about her photos of bound feet at Asia House in London on 15 June
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