For many of us, the book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan was a very memorable book.  It was a lovely story about friendship, family, and the duties of a daughter.  The descriptions of the foot binding process have stuck with me, especially the part of the book where the mother forces her daughter to walk across the floor on newly broken feet - not out of the desire to torture, but as a mother trying to ensure the best future for her daughter and family.

This same imagery stuck with my friend Coleen, the only member of our book club currently living in Singapore.  Last week, while in Beijing, she talked with a coworker who is Chinese-Singaporean.  Coleen mentioned that we had read this book, how she didn't really understand the boot binding, and how horrible it sounded to her.  He sent Coleen two pictures of a woman who has had her feet bound, who's feet are considered by her culture to be large.

In reading the book, I thought about the physical pain of the daughter as she went through the extraordinarily painful process.  I thought about the inner conflict that a mother must feel in being the instrument of that pain to her child, doing it out of love and necessity to ensure a good future.  Until seeing these pictures, I hadn't given much thought to how it would be to live out a life with bound feet, made even more difficult with the changes brought by aging. 


Thank you Coleen for sharing these pictures - and thanks to your coworker as well.  And I agree with you, bunions aren't so bad after all.