Cultural and Religous Traditions

Every culture and religion has their own set of traditions and rules. Some of them are so strange and foreign to us that we could not possibly imagine people we know doing them.
Eunuchs, also known as the “impotent ones”, are men and boys, in China and India who have been castrated through a genital reassignment surgery, in which anesthesia is generally not used. Sometimes it was used as punishment and sometimes it was a way of gaining employment in the imperial service. Some Eunuchs volunteer for this surgery, others are forced to have it done. They used to be used to guard royal harems. Today they are just beggars, and seldomly used to bless births, marriages, etc.
Another popular tradition is the Chinese foot binding. About 5 billion Chinese women have been forced to do this to make their feet more “elegant”. As young as the age of 4, little girls had their feet bound tightly. Each toe was individually broken, wrapped and bent backwards, under the foot, towards their heel. They were changed regularly and were tighter each time. Their feet broke and became deformed. They tried to keep the feet between 3 and 4 inches. After years they would achieve this, but have folded feet. Many women died from infections but many also could no longer walk or run. If they didn’t take part in this tradition they were frowned upon and could rarely find someone to marry them because their feet were “ugly”. Foot binding ended in the early 20th century.
http://listverse.com/2007/08/12/top-10-bizarre-traditions/