Chinese Eunuch Boys

[Andrew (imported)]

Today people just equate it with sex or no sex. But then being a eunuch was something semi-divine.

Only for a very small minority of eunuchs. Most were slaves, living miserable lives.

Or even if not slaves, still leading miserabble lives. Supply and demand. How many eunuchs were NEEDED in Chinese/Indian/Arabian/whatever cultures, as compared to the number of poor boys casrtrated by their families looking for a quick and easy road to riches?

Closer to home, consider the many Italian boys castrated by their families looking for a quick and easy road to riches. A few, VERY few, went on to careers in opera. A few more were hired as choristers for churches. And the rest? Discarded by society, for the most part. Scorned, rejected, leading miserable lives.

Please let us not romanticise what were basically ugly pages in human history.

[happousai (imported)]

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Disturbing images to follow --- you may NOT want to

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Did I miss something? It didn't seem that disturbing to me. I thought you were going to post pictures of boys being cut, or something.

[Paolo]

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Disturbing images t

o follow --- you may NOT want to

> scroll down any further!

Did I miss something? It didn't seem that disturbing to me. I thought you were going to post

pictures of boys being cut, or something.

Personally, I found the first one and the 'work permits' quite disturbing. As for the latter, that's not going to happen here.

[Quillman (imported)]

You would not expect to see anyone yet alone eunuchs looking happy in a 1890 photograph given a photographic exposure of at least a minute or more. I saw this photograph in a programme about eunuchs in which the last of them was interviewed (alas he has since died) and he wasn't really smiling then either! I think bemused might be the best I can muster. That was the second, the first was the indian boy, but since those early years I have vastly increased my "collection" very many of them smiling and quite willing subjects, however have yet to find the operating sort though I know they exist. Rest assured that I will never compromise this site because I love and respect it so much.

Quillman UK

[yankee masha (imported)]

I wasnt' romanticizing it, I was just showing the mentality of different cultures regarding castration adn its uses. Chinese people then also bound their daughters' feet hoping to land them a richer husband. I didn't say it was good, I was just showing that it was not America now, but China then.

As to the boy's expression, taking photos then required such a strong light that the subject usually was trying to squint against the glare. I have pics of myhself as a boy from the later 1940's where I look exactly like that. In one I am holding an Easter Basket. You can't impose your interpretation of a person's expression in a photograph and say "this is what he was really thinking."

If you can't discuss past cultures without having to cover your motives every sentence then we all just have to clam up and watch TV.

In the days of the choristers no one had decent lives. Even the wealthy and powerful led miserable lives compared to us. The choices then were always one evil against the other.

Please I eneer said it was GOOD or romantic, I just pointed out, based on my own education, what motivated people to do it.

I don't know if the actual castrati or eunuchs were happy. I only said this is why they were placed in that situation.

But historically, going back thousands of years, FOR WHATEVER REASON, eunuchs were considered to have a certain divine character because it all started with castrating priests in Babylon. The idea was they were giving up the best of human experience to achieve spiritual oneness with their gods. It was like the Vestal virgins in Rome giving up sex.

Believe it or not they didn't think like modern day Americans or Europeans and didn't think there was anything wrong with it. They had different economic expectations than we do.

I don't mean this to sound testy but I wasn't romanticizing anything, just reporting history.

We are all interested in the subject --otherwise why this incredibly excellent and well managed site?

And without wanting to turn into a dry lecture about sociological particularities, Chinese did not go around smiling into the camera. In fact smiling is not really a Chinese cultural trait, which doesn't mean they are suffering or miserable. They just don't smile in certain situations. I know this from personal experience, as well as observation. In fact the idea of going around smiling all the time or using smiling as proof you are feeling good is a very recent American thing. Sober opr even somber faces were considered proper decorum in most societies well into this century. I am Italian-American and I want to tell you Italians don't smile much either. So using the lack of smiles on 19th century Chinese as an indication they aren't happy just isn't valid.

(I hope you don't think I am attacking -- e-mail language often sounds liek that. I hope I am just adding to the discussion. You are always welcome to tell me I'm full of it -- even if I'm not LOL)

[Charlieje (imported)]

Yankee Masha,

For the record, I do not find your posts the least bit offensive; on the contrary they are informative and well thought out.

As for your comments re: photography subjects of a hundred years ago, you have a very good point. People back then were indeed very intimidated by the camera.

I still believe it is a very gross injustice to modify a child in any way, be it castration, binding of feet, or whatever. (personally I even include circumcision - that should also be a person's personal choice)

We disagree on one more point, Yankee. I have known a few Italian-Americans in my lifetime, and in my experience they smile, and laugh, a LOT!

[Tomas (imported)]

In formal and even in most informal photos one generally will not find most people smiling before about 1910 or 1920 at the earliest.

Professional photographers prior to that time did NOT want their clients to smile. Photographs were as daunting and formal as a portrait in oil - just in a newer, more accurate, and less subtle medium.

As an example, my grandmother's earlier pics all make her look like one of the most grim people on planet Earth - even though she was an imp and troublemaker who was ALWAYS laughing, smiling, and pulling tricks.

When one was plopped down in front of the camera, one was told to compose theselves, not to smile, and not to move.

Only now days do most of us look like village idiots or maybe like all of our brains just dribbled out of our ears moments before the photo was snapped - huge grins, bulging eyes, laughter, informal "poses," etc.

http://home.earthlink.net/~imagepool/tomsig03.gif

[Blaise (imported)]

had everyone stare into the sun. He had some absurd idea that this was the proper way to pose and shoot photographs. My siblings and I systematically eliminate old photograhic images (of ourselves) as we review the family albums.

[yankee masha (imported)]

Thank you, Charlieje, I am feeling my way around here. I like your avatar photo. It reminds me of the front porch of the house I grew up in where we seemed to do a lot of family pictures. Being Italian I always would look at out family photos and wonder why everyone looked so mad.

Tomas, I also love your avatar, and I have visited your sites and should thank you for them. It was really quite a good thing you did for people to allow us to view your surgery results. It looks great by the way, as if it started out that way instead of man-made. I can see why you are happy with the results.

But the thing to remember always is that in certain older cultures situations that disturb us were not viewed with the same cultural conditioning. We can't turn around and impose our emotions on a totally different time. The whole idea that in the Forbidden City, the only fully sexed man allowed there was the Emperor except on rare occasions. Of course the solution of castrating the necessary men who worked there was jolting to us, but it shows how different the thought processes were. They saw the Emperor as Divine and he could do no wrong no mater what he decreed.

And to add, we have here our own castrated men reporting that they are much happier with their decision than they were before the surgery.

So we have these elite Chinese eunuchs living in an isolated place where they were rich, powerful and respected as well as pmpered. they grew up with the idea that the had been given a special gift of being close to their Emperor. It is likely they would view it as outrageous to think they were less than happy with their lives. There was no such thing then as a social consciousness regarding poor people. And I would point out that no one here in America seems to care much about the homeless people and their children growing up in cardboard boxes in the large cities while multimillionaires run the country for their own benefit.

[Charlieje (imported)]

Yankie,

Thanks for mentioning my avatar. Actually I was rather surprised that no one else did after I changed it, but perhaps those who know me already know about it.

But now that you have brought it up I'm gonna tell you about it, like it or not. :tongueout

The man in uniform is my dad, the little boy is me at age 3 (give or take).

I was so incredibly proud of my dad, but by the time I was 10 our relationship had deteriorated to strangers, and it went downhill from there.

We never did reconcile, but now that I am a dad myself (and a granddad), I know that I could have done more than I did to get us back together. Well, I cannot do that because he's been dead for about 17 years, so the next best thing and all I have to offer is to show the one picture I have of myself with him, at a time when each of us liked and loved the other.

I am still very proud of my dad. No, he couldn't seem to get it together with his children, but in every other way he was a fine man. He tried his best. Who among us can say we've been successful in all aspects of our lives?