Horrific photos show the 1,000-year-old Chinese practice of foot binding that agonisingly mutilates the toes into a ‘lotus’ shape… and was carried out on girls as young as FOUR
The stomach-churning custom was first adopted 1,000 years ago and was seen as a symbol of beauty and wealth
STOMACH-churning photographs have shown the agonising effects of the practice of foot binding.
The horrific Chinese custom was first adopted 1,000 years ago among courtesans, after a Tang Dynasty emperor fell in love with a mistress who wrapped her tiny feet in silk when she danced.
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Zhou Guizhen, 86, shows one of her bound feet where the bones in the four small toes were broken and forced underneath the foot over a period of time, at her home in Liuyi village in China's southern Yunnan ProvinceCredit: Getty Images
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Zhou reveals how her toes have been manipulated with tight bandages so they now sit painfully at the sole of her footCredit: Getty Images
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Pictured, three young girls with bound feet. In imperial China, young girls would have their feet bound, crushing them into a mutilated shape they called the 'lotus foot'Credit: Public Domain/News Dog Media
The bizarre custom soon became entrenched in upper-class court performers before spreading to all socio-economic divisions.
It quickly became the ultimate measure of a woman’s beauty at the time.
Foot binding also became popular as a means of displaying wealth.
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A member of the Bound Feet Women Dancing Team puts on her 'Three Cuns Golden Lotus' shoe as she prepares for dancing practice at Liuyi Village. 'Three Cuns Golden Lotus' is a term used to describe ancient Chinese women's bound feet, in which three 'cuns' are about 3.39 inchesCredit: Getty Images
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Sitting in her home, a traditional courtyard house, Wang Guifeng, 79, shows her uncovered bound foot. She had her feet bound when only a small child and was renowned for having the most beautiful lotus feet in the villageCredit: Eyevine
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Zhou tightly wraps bandages around her minuscule feet that she will then squeeze into her pointed shoesCredit: Getty Images
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Zhou lifts up her trouser leg to show how deformed her feet have become over time. According to popular Chinese legend the custom was at first adopted among courtesans 1,000 years agoCredit: Getty Images
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Young girls practice the Beijing Opera at a theatre school in Beijing in 1934. Their feet have been boundCredit: Public Domain/News Dog Media
Women from rich families, who did not need their feet to work, could afford to have them bound.
To mould the so-called ‘lotus foot’, girls aged between four and nine had their toenails cut extremely short and then their feet wrapped in tight bandages.
The process was often done in the winter months when the feet were more likely to be numb and therefore the pain would not be as extreme.
But it was still a traumatic process that involved breaking the bones and mutilating the toes underneath the foot.
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Women show off their bound feet, once pervasive in China and seen as a show of beauty. The elderly women in their 80s are some of the last group to have had their feet bound in Bijie, Guzhou, ChinaCredit: B434
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A member of the Bound Feet Women Dancing Team shows off her tiny red shoes that are embroidered with colourful flowersCredit: Getty Images
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Yang Yueshi, 90, talks with a neighbour as she walks unsteadily on her bound feet where the bones in the four small toes are broken and forced underneath the footCredit: Getty Images
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In remote parts of China, several villages still have living in them women who have bound feet. Now very old, they are the last reminder of this ancient Chinese traditionalCredit: Eyevine
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Wang removes her pumps to show how warped her feet have become after years of being bound. The process is said to be excruciatingly painfulCredit: Eyevine
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A Beijing opera troop is photographed in 1919. The fascinating black and white image gives an insight into what China was like 100 years agoCredit: Public Domain/News Dog Media
Once the foot had been bound, it was difficult to undo.
Foot binding was carried out from the 10th century and finally outlawed in 1911.
A few elderly Chinese women who had the procedure performed on them still survive today, but they have lifelong pain and disabilities from the custom.
Foot binding portrayed in fascinating images that show how China has changed in the past 100 years
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Before the Communist Party came into power, opium abuse was officially illegal. But in practice, it was fairly common. These smokers are hiding out in an illegal denCredit: Public Domain/News Dog Media
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Two singing girls pose for the camera in Hong Kong in 1901. The instrument that the girl on the left is holding is called an erhuCredit: Public Domain/News Dog Media
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Boys peek their heads out on a commercial street in Guangzhou, Guangdong in 1880Credit: Public Domain/News Dog Media
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A woman poses with her maid near a bronze incense burner in Beijing in 1869Credit: Public Domain/News Dog Media
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Two wealthy merchants eat and enjoy the company of girls paid to sing. These men, as part of the bourgeois, would be major targets of the new regime after the Communist RevolutionCredit: Public Domain/News Dog Media
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Three merchants in traditional dress reflecting class hierarchies, with the two older men, seated, wearing furs or more elaborate robes and the younger men, standing, wearing plainer clothesCredit: Public Domain/News Dog Media
The incredibly rare pictures come from the Qing dynasty - a powerful empire that ruled from 1644 to 1912 - and show adolescent girls with their feet in pointed flats, men with their hair plaited into long braids and people smoking opium.
Following the end of the Qing dynasty, China dramatically changed - with age-old traditions such as feet binding, poetry reading and drug smoking left behind.
The striking black and white pictures are a world away from how we think of China today – an industrious nation filled with sprawling cities.
The Qing Empire ruled from 1644 to 1912. At the time, many people’s lives were shaped by their Taoist and Buddhist beliefs.
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This photo is labelled 'The Abbot of the Monastery.' The subject is likely a Taoist priest. Religion was suppressed during the Cultural Revolution under Marxist ideals. Taoists had to practice their religion in secretCredit: Public Domain/News Dog Media
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A doctor checks a patient's foot. Under the rule of the Qing dynasty, every Han Chinese man was required to wear his hair in a braidCredit: Public Domain/News Dog Media
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Men smoking opium. During the Kuomintang party's rule in the early 1900s, opium was trafficked to fund the partyCredit: Public Domain/News Dog Media
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Peasant men carry bricks of tea on their back. The bricks of tea on their backs weigh more than 300 pounds. These men would often have to make deliveries by walking 112 miles on foot, with all of that weight on their backsCredit: Public Domain/News Dog Media
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Boys at a mission school climb on each other's shoulders to form a dragon in Beijing in 1902Credit: Public Domain/News Dog Media
After the communist party took power in 1949, and the Cultural Revolution began in 1966, the ruling party began to erase its own history.
The ruling elite saw history as backward and something people should be ashamed of.
They chased out religion, burned books, destroyed cultural relics, and did everything they could to obliterate their nation's minority cultures.
Traditional Chinese dress was sapped for Mao suits and military uniforms.
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The ladies of the palace, dressed in the imperial clothes of the Qing dynasty. Their faces have been painted whiteCredit: Public Domain/News Dog Media
While poetry classes were replaced with the writing of Lu Xun and communist leader Mao Zedong’s ‘Little Red Book.’
China also suddenly became an atheist country.
Startling pictures show young teenage women with their feet bound at theatre school.
In other arresting photos young men can be seen with their hair in long braids.
Under the rule of the Qing dynasty, every Han Chinese man was required to wear his hair in a braid.
Various images also show people smoking opium. Before the Communist party came into power, opium abuse was illegal however it was fairly common.
People tended to smoke it in underground dens.
The Communist Party took a much harder line branding drug traffickers as 'enemies of the people'. By 1951, the Communist Party claimed that opium abuse had been wiped out.
