In the past, old Beijingers used to say, "If you have no shoes on your feet, you will be half short," which describes the important role of a pair of shoes in making the finishing point for personal aura when people dress up. In summer, children and adults mostly wore plastic sandals and went barefoot to wash their feet in the rainwater. In winter, the old people wore hand-sewn cotton shoes with hemp rope soles, called "cotton nests" by old Beijingers before. Actually, it is very comfortable to wear "cotton nests" during the frozen days after the winter solstice. There was also a style of cotton shoes that was once very popular. Old Beijingers used to call them "camel saddle" cotton shoes. These shoes had no distinction for left foot and right foot at the beginning of production, but they were warm and fit the feet well. At the same time, these cotton shoes were easy to wear and take off, so they were liked by people of all ages. At that time, the whole society vigorously advocated thriftiness and opposed extravagance and waste; few people wore polished leather shoes, which would be criticized as "unreliable". Most ordinary people living in Hutongs wore elastic cloth shoes made of corduroy with a white plastic sole. People in Beijing called these shoes "loafers" and gave them an accented Beijing phrase "white-edged loafers".

(Source: Takefoto)