Imagine a grown woman with baby feet

August 20, 2014August 21, 2014 / Yang-May Ooi / Leave a comment

It’s difficult for us in the modern world to imagine how small bound feet were. Whenever I say to people that some of the smallest bound feet were only 3 inches long, they register that that is small but it’s only when they see exactly how small 3 inches is, that the horror of it hits them.

In order to illustrate how tiny bound feet were for “Breaking Tradition”, my award-winning talk inspired by the stories in Bound Feet Blues, I went online to order a pair of baby shoes. I searched and searched for baby shoes that were 3 inches long but the smallest size that I could find came to just over 4 inches.

The photo above shows me holding those 4+ inch baby shoes during Continue reading →

Why I love this pair of battered biker boots

July 20, 2014July 19, 2014 / Yang-May Ooi / 5 Comments

I’ve been blogging a lot about high heels recently and in particular, my efforts to recreate a swaying, high heeled walk for a scene in Bound Feet Blues.

To give you a contrast – and especially to show you who I am now, here is a photo of the kind of footwear that I stride around in these days.

This is the pair of biker boots that I wear most often in my daily life. They are now a bit beaten up and grungy looking. But I love them because they are the most comfortable pair of boots I have at the moment.

I love the way that they make me feel a bit tough, especially with the two strapped buckles on the side. If you know me, you know that I’m really a softy and not much of a hard-ass biker chick at all – but it gives me a kick (ha ha) to stomp around in these boots that make me feel as if I could win any bar brawl…

For me, the shoes or boots that I wear can really affect Continue reading →

Solo Performance: Bound Feet Blues – A Life Told in Shoes (work in progress)

April 10, 2014April 14, 2014 / Yang-May Ooi / Leave a comment

In Chinese tradition, women with tiny bound feet were desirable as wives and lovers, their delicate feet seen as objects of both status and sexual fetish. In her first full length storytelling piece Bound Feet Blues – A Life Told in Shoes, Chinese-Malaysian story performer Yang-May Ooi explores themes of female desirability, identity and empowerment in this personal story told through the shoes in her life.

The image of Chinese women with bound feet has haunted me since I was a child. I think of these women who have been crippled for life ever since they were 4 years old, unable to walk, with broken stumps for feet beneath the delicately embroidered silk shoes. Just so they can appear to have little, dainty feet and seem to be elegant and graceful – and therefore desirable and marriageable.