For almost a millennium, the practice of foot binding was prevalent across Chinese society, starting with the wealthier classes but over the years spreading down through urban and then poorer rural communities. Now the ancient, some say barbaric, practice is almost gone.
Isolated from the country's key cultural and administrative hubs, the area around Liuyi, a village of about 2,000 people in southern China's Yunnan province, was one of the last places in the country to end the tradition.
The feet of girls as young as 5 would be broken and bound tightly with cotton strips, forcing their four smallest toes to gradually fold under the soles to create a so-called 3-inch golden lotus, once idealized as the epitome of beauty.
The process would take many years and would lead to a lifetime of labored movement, as well as a regular need to rebind the feet.
The practice fell out of favor at the turn of the 20th century, viewed as an antiquated and shameful part of imperialist Chinese culture, and was officially banned soon after. But in rural areas, the feet of some young girls were still being bound into the early 1950s. In Liuyi, the practice didn't stop until around 1957.
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