s then instructed to dance for him in front of a six-foot lotus constructed entirely from gold and decorated with pearls and precious stones. This is where the term that described the woman's foot as a, "golden lotus," came from (Chinn, 38). Pretty soon, word spread from the palace to the nobility, which was then passed down to the lower classes (who did their best to imitate) (Chinn, 38). The fetish of one emperor spread to become a fetish of his whole dynasty. In 1644, the Manchurians tried to ban foot binding, but never were able to enforce it (Mo-chün, 65). The Manchurian women never practiced foot binding but the Chinese women of Han descent continued with the tradition (Mo-chün, 65). With the turn of the 20th century, China began to be scolded by the modern world, which viewed the custom as barbaric. Feminist groups also began to pop up all over China, speaking out against foot binding (Mo-chün, 65). Empress Dowager Tz'u-his in 1902 issued a decree banning the practice though the practice continued well into the 1920's (Mo-chün). Still, foot binding persisted within traditional families residing in rural areas (Mo-chün). The more China became developed, the more pressure the outside world exerted on them to ban the old-fashioned custom (Mo-chün). The Chinese Xinhua News Agency announced, in 1998, that the last factory to manufacture shoes for bound-feet women in Harbin, China, had ended production (Chinn, 38). Finally, after millennia, China has changed its customs and bound feet are rarely seen anywhere except on old Chinese women born in the early 20th century.
             The goal of a bound foot is to reduce both its length and width. How can this possibly be achieved? The procedure involved taking a piece of cloth, preferably about ten feet long and two inches wide, and wrapping the foot. One end was placed on the inside of the arch, and from there it was carried over the small toes so as to force the toes in and towards the sole...