English Reading Comprehension For High School Students

Foot binding

1. Today, many women are no strangers to stylish, yet painful shoes. Stiletto pumps, strappy sandals and 6-inch heels have graced fashion runways for decades. However, what if you were expected to stuff your feet into high-heeled, pointy-toed shoes that were only 4 inches long? For centuries, this was the expectation for millions of women across China, and they achieved it through a practice called ‘foot binding’.

2. Foot binding is the custom of wrapping a young girl’s feet tightly and painfully in strips of cloth to stunt the future growth of the foot. The practice was popular in China for many centuries and may have started as early as the 9th or 10th century. Originally, a symbol of status among the rich, the trend soon spread and affected millions of women and girls over the next millennium.

3. There were many reasons for foot binding. First, small feet indicated wealth and social status. Small feet meant that women did not have to work to support herself. Second, it showed that the woman was dependent on her husband and family, which was valued in Chinese society. Third, men liked small feet. The shape of bound feet and the pain they caused made women walk with a swaying gait, and men found this very attractive.

4. Lotus shoes – special shoes designed to highlight the small size and unique shape of a bound foot – became a high-quality fashion accessory. Finally, in poor families, the oldest daughter would have her feet bound from a young age so she would be married to a wealthy man, while her younger sisters worked as servants in her household.

5. There is no doubt that foot binding was very painful and often dangerous for women. Binding usually began between the ages of four and nine, before the bones in the arch of the foot fully developed. To begin binding, and the toenails were trimmed down as far as possible. Next, the toes were bent under the foot so that all the toe bones broke. This continued until the arch of the foot also broke. Cotton bandages were used to bind the foot to keep the broken bones tightly in position. The bandages had to be unwound at least every other day to clean the foot and check for infection, then rewound even more tightly.

6. After years of this agonizing process, the foot eventually went numb. However, this did not ease the suffering. The broken bones would usually not heal for several years, and when they finally did, they were prone to breaking again later in life.

7. In the 18th century there was opposition to foot binding, and this picked up steam in the 19th century. The Manchu and the Hakka groups became vocal about their opposition. The people involved in these groups argued that abolishing the practice would lead to better health among women. In the early 20th century, only a very small percentage of young girls still had bound feet. The communist regime of 1949 was against the custom, and the last reported case of foot binding was in 1957.

Answer all questions

• Name two types of shoes that are popular in the modern world.
• What was the custom of foot binding?
• From paragraph 2, find and write down a word which means ‘restrict’
• What were the reasons for foot binding?
• What were Lotus shoes?
• Why was foot binding done usually between the ages of four and nine?
• Which word in paragraph 6 indicates that foot binding was a very painful process?
• What is meant by ‘picked up more steam’ in paragraph 7?

Answer key

• Two types of shoes are Stiletto pumps and strappy sandals.
• The custom of foot binding was wrapping a young girl’s feet tightly and painfully in strips of cloth to stunt the future growth of the foot.
• Stunt
• The reasons for foot binding were as follows. First, small feet indicated of wealth and social status. Secondly, it could symbolize a dependence on her husband and family, which were both valued in Chinese society. Third, small feet appealed to many men.
• The Lotus shoes were special shoes designed to highlight the small size and unique shape of a bound foot.
• This is because between the ages of four and nine, the bones in the arch of the foot were not fully developed.
• Agonizing
• Became stronger