The summer Olympics in Beijing inspired me to learn about shoes
in the Chinese culture. I wanted to find more information behind
the ancient practice of footbinding and to see examples of
traditional Chinese shoes. The shoes made for women with bound
feet were called Lotus shoes. These shoes were handmade with
lavish embroidery. Soles of these shoes were made of cotton and
cloth layers. These were glued to a wooden board. The uppers
were silk and were embroidered. The process of footbinding was
painful. Between ages 4-7, a young girls feet were wrapped with
tight bandages to prevent them from growing. Wikipedia goes into
a decent about of detail about the process. Basically, the
badgaes were soaked in herbs and animal blood, as were the
girl's feet. The bandages would tighten as they dried. The
girl's toes were broken in order to be wrapped tightly. Bandages
were changed every two days. Occasionally, the process would
result in infection, toes falling off, or even death. The goal
of this was to achieve the Lo