In years gone by, it was believed that that a woman is most beautiful when her feet are bound. But for Yan Guiri, arguably the last of China's "Lotus Feet" women, the experience was as harrowing as facing death.

This practice was started by the upper-class court dancers between 10th and 11th century. It became popular through all the classes during the Song dynasty. Ideally, a girl should have a bound foot of 3 Chinese inches (4 inches in Western measurement). Having lotus feet meant the girl came from a wealthy family and so she did not have to work with her feet. It was eventually adopted as a symbol of beauty in Chinese culture. Foot-binding, however, caused disabilities to women. The call to ban foot binding grew in intensity at the onset of 20^th century.

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In an interview with The Telegraph, the 95-year-old revealed her experience.

"I couldn't even put a blanket over my feet at night, they hurt so much they felt like burning lumps of coal,"  the frail and weak 95-year-old said.

A spark of anger still burns in her eyes every time recalls that moment in her life. 

She recalled that her infant feet were dipped in animal blood every few days. They were then bind with cotton and wrapped tighter and tighter around her soft, broken bones. She recalled every time she tried to remove the binding, she would get beaten. At 18, she was already using a stick to help her walk.

And she had no choice. That was her only way then of securing a comfortable future.

"But if you wanted to live a better life, you needed to have smaller feet. Landlords and rich farmers only wanted women with small feet. The smaller, the better," she said.

With the overthrow of the Qing dynasty, the Nationalist government banned feet biding in 1912 because it was symbol of the backwardness of the country's Imperial past.

But the worst was yet to come. During the rise of the Communist regime, women, who were once left to tend their home, were forced to find a living in order to contribute something to the commune. Yan, and other Lotus Feet, battled through pain to work.

The disturbing pain is now years away in the past and the wraps that bind her feet were no more. Yan now freely walks with a stick around her house.

"Her bare feet shows an enlarged heel and limp toes that are deeply embedded into the soft flesh under the front of her foot," Telegraph reports.

"These shoes [referring to the shoes she wore way back then] were bought a long, long time ago," she bemoaned. "Now there is no place I can buy them."

Tagsfoot binding, lotus feet, yan guiri, China Feet Binding