Chinese women feet  

You're right, it's sometimes difficult to understand other cultures and I had never thought about the similarity with the use of corsets.

I don't think feet binding is like corset wearing. After all the European women only wore corsets for a short period of time during the day and it was worn to make the waist _look_ slimmer not to provoke any long time shape altering of it. Where as that Chinese tradition is the exact opposite: they spent long periods of time with their feet bound so that it will, in time, actually change the appearance of their feet.

If I were to compare this Chinese tradition with anything I'd compare it with that African tribe's tradition where women wear all sorts of metal rings around their neck making it incredibly long (even so that after few years they cannot hold their head up without those rings).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing anyone's traditions, I'm just not very fond of those that make people change their body for the worse.