Editing Foot binding (section)

==In popular culture==
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The bound foot has played a prominent part in many media works, both Chinese and non-Chinese, modern and traditional.<ref>Mei Ching Liu, "Women and the Media in China: An Historical Perspective", ''Journalism Quarterly'' 62 (1985): 45-52.</ref> These depictions are sometimes based on observation or research and sometimes on rumors or supposition. Sometimes, as in the case of [[Pearl Buck]]'s ''[[The Good Earth]]'' (1931), the accounts are relatively neutral or empirical, implying respect for Chinese culture.{{efn|Though ''The Good Earth'' features neutral or empirical accounts of foot binding, Buck's previous novel, ''East Wind: West Wind'' explored the unbinding of a woman's feet, experienced as frightening and painful yet finally empowering, as part of her transition into a new, more modern and more individualistic persona under her doctor husband's tutelage.}} Sometimes, the accounts seem intended to rouse like-minded Chinese and foreign opinion to abolish the custom, and sometimes the accounts imply condescension or contempt for China.<ref>Patricia Ebrey, "Gender and Sinology: Shifting Western Interpretations of Footbinding, 1300–1890", ''Late Imperial China'' 20.2  (1999): 1-34.</ref>

* Quoted in the ''[[Jin Ping Mei]]'' ({{circa|1610}}): "displaying her exquisite feet, three inches long and no wider than a thumb, very pointed and with high insteps."<ref>{{cite book |title=The Golden Lotus, Volume 1 |date=1979 |publisher=Graham Brash (PTE) Ltd |location=Singapore |page=101}}</ref>
* [[Anna Bunina]] mentions the custom in her 1810 fable "{{lang|ru|[[:wikisource:ru:Пекинское ристалище (Бунина)|Пекинское ристалище]]}}" (''The Peking Stadium''), which describes a Chinese woman attempting to run a race and barely finishing the boys' course, yet still getting applause for the effort. Bunina used the custom as an allegory to her own difficulties in getting recognition as a poet.<ref>{{cite book | doi=10.11647/obp.0018 | doi-access=free | title=Women in Nineteenth-Century Russia: Lives and Culture | date=2012 | isbn=978-1-906924-65-2 | editor-last1=Rosslyn | editor-last2=Tosi | editor-first1=Wendy | editor-first2=Alessandra }}</ref>
* ''[[Flowers in the Mirror]]'' (1837) by Ju-Chen Li includes chapters set in the "Country of Women", where men bear children and have bound feet.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/flowersinmirror00liju |url-access=registration |title =Flowers in the Mirror|author=Ruzhen Li |others=translation by [[Lin Tai-yi]] |publisher=University of California Press |year=1965 |isbn=978-0-520-00747-5}}</ref>
* ''The Three-Inch Golden Lotus'' (1994) by [[Feng Jicai]]<ref>{{cite book|title=The Three Inch Lotus|url=https://archive.org/details/unset0000unse_k2k7|url-access=registration|author=Jicai, Feng |translator=Wakefield, David |location=Honolulu|publisher=University of Hawaii Press|date=1994|isbn=9780585250052}}</ref> presents a satirical picture of the movement to abolish the practice, which is seen as part of Chinese culture.
* In the film ''[[The Inn of the Sixth Happiness]]'' (1958), [[Ingrid Bergman]] portrays [[Gladys Aylward]], a British missionary to China who is assigned as a foreigner the task by a local Mandarin to unbind the feet of young women, an unpopular order that the civil government had failed to fulfill. Later, the children are able to escape troops by walking miles to safety.
* Ruthanne Lum McCunn wrote a [[biographical novel]], ''[[Thousand Pieces of Gold]]'' (1981, adapted into [[Thousand Pieces of Gold (film)|a 1991 film]]), about [[Polly Bemis]], a [[Chinese American]] [[American pioneer|pioneer]] woman. It describes her feet being bound and later unbound when she needed to help her family with farm labor.
* [[Emily Prager]]'s short story "A Visit from the Footbinder", from her collection of short stories of the same name (1982), describes the last few hours of a young Chinese girl's childhood before the professional footbinder arrives to initiate her into the adult woman's life of beauty and pain.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Newman |first=Judie |date=2007-06-01 |title=The Readerly Politics of Western Domination : Emily Prager's "A Visit from the Footbinder" |url=https://journals.openedition.org/jsse/777 |journal=Journal of the Short Story in English. Les Cahiers de la nouvelle |language=en |issue=48 |eissn=1969-6108}}</ref>
* [[Jung Chang]]'s family autobiography ''[[Wild Swans]]'' presents the story of Yu-fang, the grandmother, who had bound feet from the age of two.
* [[Lisa Loomer]]'s play ''The Waiting Room'' (1994) deals with themes of [[body modification]]. One of the three main characters is an 18th-century Chinese woman who arrives in a modern hospital waiting room, seeking medical help for complications resulting from her bound feet. She describes the foot-binding process, as well as the physical and psychological harm her bound feet have caused.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gecgil |first=Emine |title=New Women's Writing: Contextualising Fiction, Poetry and Philosophy |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |year=2018 |isbn=978-1-5275-0814-9 |editor-last=Bhattacharjee |editor-first=Subashish |pages=191–205 |editor-last2=Narayan Ray |editor-first2=Girindra}}</ref>
* [[Lensey Namioka]]'s novel ''[[Ties that Bind, Ties that Break]]'' (1999) follows a girl named Ailin in China who refuses to have her feet bound, which comes to affect her future.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-385-32666-7 | title=Children's Book Review: Ties That Bind, Ties That Break by Lensey Namioka | work=[[Publishers Weekly]] | date=May 1999 | access-date=April 23, 2018}}</ref>
* [[Lisa See]]'s novel ''[[Snow Flower and the Secret Fan]]'' (2005) is about two Chinese girls who are destined to be friends. The novel is based upon the sacrifices women make to be married and includes the two girls being forced into getting their feet bound. The book was adapted into [[Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (film)|a 2011 film]] directed by [[Wayne Wang]].
* The Filipino horror film ''[[Feng Shui (2004 film)|Feng Shui]]'' and its sequel ''[[Feng Shui 2]]'' feature a ghost of a foot-bound woman inhabits a [[bagua]] and cursed those who holds the item.
* Sieglinde Sullivan from ''[[Black Butler]]'' had her feet bound when she was young as part of the "Emerald Witch" hoax invented by the German military.
* [[Lisa See]]'s novel ''[[China Dolls (novel)|China Dolls]]'' (2014) describes Chinese family traditions including foot binding.
* [[Xiran Jay Zhao]]'s novel ''[[Iron Widow]]'' (2021) is set in a futuristic world inspired by medieval China that still practices foot binding. The main character, Wu Zetian, had her feet bound in childhood and suffers from chronic pain due to it.
* [[Edward Rutherfurd]]'s novel ''[[China (novel)|China]]'': An Epic Novel, is set in late [[Qing dynasty|Qing Dynasty China]], when foot binding was still common practice among [[Han Chinese]] in the north. Bright Moon, the daughter of a main character Mei-Ling, has her feet bound to increase her chances of a good marriage, and the practice is described in detail. The character soon resents that she has her feet bound, as it causes her severe pain, and stops her from participating in many activities.
* In episode 9 of the anime series ''[[The Apothecary Diaries]]'', a servant girl was found dead in a moat. After an autopsy, it was found that she had her feet bound.