Foot-binding stories told by elders

In my hometown, there is a famous woman with little feet. She is called sister-in-law in our family, and her peers call her girl. Later generations called her sister-in-law. She was famous because she was the only midwife in the village at that time. She loves joking and telling stories, is friendly and sincere to people, is cheerful all day, walks briskly, and has a pair of very delicate "three-inch golden lotus" feet. Everyone in the village knows about it.

Your girl was born in 1904. She began to bind her feet at the age of six. At the age of 8, she married Pan Jia in the village called Mishanli as a child bride. She has three boys and two girls. Her wife died before she was 40 years old, and she has been a widow ever since. Because I usually help people deliver babies, I have a foundation. In the early days of liberation, the village sent her to the commune health center to learn new delivery techniques. She studied hard, studied hard and practiced hard, and her skills were even better, enjoying high prestige in the local area. Many "dystocia" mothers and children have been reborn in her hands. She delivered the baby, not too dirty, not too poor, on call. She worked until she was over 80. Everyone in the village respects her very much. She has delivered many women in the village, and some villagers have delivered babies for three generations.

When I was a child, I often saw a colorful little girl (walking) walking in the field, carrying a yellow wooden medicine box (health care box). My aunt must have gone to deliver another baby. Although she is old, she is in good health! She sits like a pine, walks like the wind, and looks only in her fifties.

In the early 1970s, I also studied medicine and became a barefoot doctor in the brigade. It was inevitable that we would go to the commune health center for a meeting together. In our spare time, we also like to play jokes together and curiously ask her the story of foot binding.

China's foot-binding phenomenon began in the Five Dynasties Palace, then spread among the people and became popular in the Northern Song Dynasty. The method is that when a girl is five or six years old, she will break her toes except the big toe and bend them to the soles of her feet with a long cloth to stop them from growing, thus forming a "bamboo shoot"-shaped foot, which is called "three-inch golden lotus". That is to say, she walked for 890 years with such feet until her 89th birthday. She has never been in any motor vehicle in her life. Speaking of foot binding, she was filled with emotion. At that time, women, whether ugly or handsome, were all beautiful women with little feet. She is so talented that even her husband's family can't find her without binding her feet. Girls' foot binding is mostly under the pressure of their elders. Yougu Miao lost her mother since she was a child, so she just wrapped herself a decent "three-inch golden lotus". That kind of pain is really endless for three days and nights. Tears welled up in her eyes as she spoke. "The bones are broken, the meat is rotten, and sometimes bricks are pressed. It won't take long to walk ..."

Now, your aunt has left us for many years. But every time I think back to her old man's house and her story, I have to marvel at the indifference and suppression of human rights. Now this era that is gone forever has finally disappeared into people's memory!