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BEIJING – It’s a small museum in a quiet and grubby village, and few people pay attention to it. Yet, despite its low profile, any man who walks into the little exhibition hall will no doubt feel a chill down his spine: it’s a museum dedicated to China’s 2,000-year history of eunuchs.
Built in 1998 and recently refurbished, the museum sits next to a tomb for the high-ranking eunuch Tian Yi from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). In a space the size of a 2,000 square foot apartment, five exhibit rooms give visitors a brief but complete account of how the system of castrating men came into being, how the eunuchs' institution grew to become powerful political cliques and how the system finally ended with the death of the last eunuch in China, Sun Yaoting, in 1996.
Bo Gu/ NBC News
The museum dedicated to China's 2,000-year history of eunuchs displays a knife that was used in castration.
The etymology of “eunuch” is the Greek word for “bed keeper.” Young boys’ penises and testicles were castrated before they were sent to serve in royal and aristocratic families as slaves – the practice was meant to ensure there was no chance of them sleeping with female members of the household or concubines.
Records of eunuchs have been found in ancient Greece, Egypt, Rome, Turkey and Persia, but none of the other countries maintained the system for long. But the practice lasted for thousands of years in China.
It’s hard to trace when exactly the first eunuch appeared in China, but the museum shows a picture of an oracle bone inscribed with the hieroglyphic word that means "eunuch" – a penis-shaped character with a blade right next to it. Hieroglyphics evolved during the Shang and Zhou dynasties (17th century B.C.-256 B.C.), but it wasn’t until the Eastern Han Dynasty (25 A.D-220 A.D.) that only castrated men were allowed to serve in royal families.
The system of eunuchs reached its zenith in China’s Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) when eunuchs became the de facto rulers who controlled the imperial power and founded their own political parties and secret police. In the late Ming-era court officials even had to bribe the sterilized men to get access to the emperor.
Zhu Youjian, the 16th and the last emperor of Ming Dynasty, had more than 100,000 eunuchs during his rule. The eunuch clique was so powerful, yet corrupt, that when Li Zicheng, the leader of an uprising during the late Ming dynasty, finally conquered the capital city, he kicked out all the eunuchs.
The museum lists all of the best-known eunuchs in one exhibit room, of which the most famous is probably Zheng He (1371-1433), the mariner, explorer, diplomat and fleet admiral, who commanded voyages to Southeast Asia, South Asia, and East Africa. His travels were later remembered outside China as “Eunuch Sanbao to the Western Ocean.” The list of luminary eunuchs also includes Cai Lun (60-121), who is revered in China as the inventor of paper.
Cruelest cut
The most chilling and vivid display room shows the actual process of castration. A life-size diorama shows a young boy lying on a bed with his limbs tied down while three other men – one holding a simple apparatus like a knife, the other holding the boy’s legs, and one performing the surgery – conduct the operation without any anesthesia.
The patients would stay in bed for months after the surgery until they could finally move again, others simply died in pain.
Bo Gu, NBC News
The tomb for the high-ranking eunuch Tian Yi sits right next to the museum.
The penis and testicles, after being removed, were usually carefully wrapped up, put in a fine case and hung up on a roof beam in the boy’s house. They would eventually be buried together with the body when the man died, following the Chinese tradition of “dying a full-body death.”
Some of the other museum displays show nicely sculptured tombstones, silk outfits senior eunuchs used to wear and a mummy excavated from nearby.
One corner is devoted to Sun Yaoting, who served the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty and his concubines. Sun died at 94 years old in 1996; “The Last Eunuch of China” is a book about his life.
Losing a man’s most important organ was never easy, which may explain why so many eunuchs donated the bulk of their money to Buddhist or Taoist temples in order to secure a different – and complete – afterlife.
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The mutilation of any human being is barbaric and wrong! But to castrate a man - I just don't get it.
Absolutely horrific....makes my skin crawl and I am a female. What people do to others, and have done to others never fails to disgust me.
Old fool...got the quote wrong...LOL. I am a direct descendant of Patrick Henry and no one recalls him mentioning his balls...LOL. Good laugh!! Thank you!!
I can't help but wonder what it would be like to share a classroom with all of you, oh god, maybe we do.
This article makes genital mutilation sound like an ancient, outdated practice performed by barbarians. In the United States many newborn boys are mutilated (circumcised) for no other reason than feminist hatred of the penis. Yes, I know the entire penis is not removed, but there's absolutely no benefit from it whatsoever. It got started in the early 1900's as a way to prevent masturbation. Back then, idiot doctors thought that masturbation casued all kinds of ailments, from asthma to cancer. They knew that the mothers would be only too happy to have the foreskin sliced off without anesthesia (hmm, sounds similar to this article, doesn't it?). That circumcision is still performed for any reason (including religious) in this day and age is scary and barbaric. Anyone who performs this procedure on newborns without consent is catamount to a pedophile. Since feminists claim to be for the rights of children, why aren't they trying to get male circumcision banned like they are trying to get female 'circumcision' banned? It's all because of misandry.
While I agree with you, not the time or the place.
When did it become a contest? Why can't a story just be about a story? How is one person's pain an invitation to start a pissing contest?
Yes, we all know that people have it really bad, but that's not what this story is about. This story happens to be about young boys who had their genitals cut completely off. No where did it say that it was better or worse than anyone else's problems.
Ooouuuccchhh!!!!!!!!!! This is gonna hurt a little!!!!!!!
This is depressing. Sun Yaoting's life was that of torment, and suffering. A suffering greater than my own. At least his only friend in life, chronicled the life of a eunuch, and his life under Japanese occupation, and then later under the Chinese Communist Government. The past emperor's of China were mostly arrogant, and cruel. I saw the "Last Emperor of China", or of the Qing Dynasty. That emperor in his ignorance of the world ended up selling out his people to their enemies. I am glad that this eunuch system is over, and I hope it stays that way forever. This form or mutilation is sicking, and the losing of your testicles, and in some cases...your penis is the loss of what defines you as a complete man.
Can anyone answer how these castrated boys/men were able to urinate? What about during the "healing" process?
When the surgery was about to take place, the candidate was placed on a low bed in a semi-reclining position, and asked once more if he would ever regret being castrated. If the answer was no, one man clasped him about the waist while two others separated his legs and held them firmly down to prevent any movement. Tight bandages were wound around the thighs and lower abdomen, the patient was given a bowl of nerve-stunning" herbal tea, and his private parts were desensitized with baths of hot pepper water. Both penis and testicles were then swiftly cut off with a small curved knife as closely as possible to the body. A metal plug was immediately inserted into the urethra, and the entire wound covered with water-soaked paper and carefully bandaged. Immediately thereafter, the eunuch was made to walk about the room for two or three hours supported on each side by the "knifers" before he was allowed to lie down. He was not allowed to drink any liquid for three days, during which time lie suffered great agony from thirst and extreme pain, and was unable to urinate. At the end of three days, the bandages were removed, the inserted plug pulled out, and hopefully the sufferer was able to obtain relief with a copious flow of urine, at which time he was congratulated and considered out of danger. If the surgery rendered the eunuch unable to urinate, the passages having grown closed, he was doomed to an agonizing death.
This from an article online www.usrf.org/news.
Just think how many Chinese there would today be if they hadn't had any castrations!!
A link to a great book about the Treasure Fleet and Zheng He.
http://www.amazon.com/When-China-Ruled-Seas-1405-1433/dp/0195112075#reader_0195112075
Such foul and beastly corruption found in ancient “civilizations.” It makes you wonder if the boys and young men were used as sexual slaves and were violated in their virginal rectums by the nobility, whom they served. If so, there clearly was a homosexual component to the practice that had nothing to do with “maintaining female honor.”
It would seem to have been an intrinsically evil custom – a precursor to male anal rape, none the less. Without the obstruction of the penis, the anal penetration could be much deeper and satisfying for the assailant. It’s amazing what the Chinese thought of – from water torture to paper, to fireworks and enhanced techniques for anally raping young males.
To so emasculate a male in this manner would surely create such a mental and emotional wreckage of any personality, that it would be the easiest thing in the world to sexually dominate and abuse them anally to one’s own deviant pleasure. No wonder Chinese imperial rulers were considered the most depraved despots of their time. Cutting off boy’s penises and ravishing their tight little butt-holes, how revoltingly barbaric indeed.
This is what the Chinese are trying to do to us now economically. Honestly, what a bunch of insecure aristocrats. Insecure because of the fact they were probably big fat losers. Enslaving young women to be at their disposal and fearing the allure of the ungelded young men. Puke
Just HELL NO on binding, breaking, cutting off or any other mutilation practice...it's just wrong and really? do we need to discuss it?
The Nazi castrated Jewish prisioners of war- without any anesthesia. What people do to each other is pretty horrible.
Footbinding is also a wicked and evil. It was done to very young children and was an extremely painful process as the growing foot was twisted and broken. The woman was a permanent cripple and had to be carried from room to room ads she could not walk. just so some rich man could hee spcial to have a wife who could not work or leave him- a true trophy wife.
Thank goodness those are things of the past--- right?!
Okay, so does anyone know where I can get a list of museums? This (very interesting) article and all of your great comments has lead me to think'''Hmm...where can I see a list of some really oddball museums to visit?"
I can't get to China right now (my money tree in the back yard died, lol) and I was wondering if there are any other museums like this here in the US?
Thanks!
I just got off the phone with the Complaint department adviser Mr Bobble Head. Mr Head is retired from retail sales as Head return counter shift assistant shift manager. I called a friend of a friend who talked to his son that reads the vine and he said his dad actually had a comment about "castration". Commenters that should be castrated for dangling their participle's and using words like that, and, thing, repeatedly, repeat and repeating them in participial phrases. It is like that same article thing any article thing so what article thing happen happening happens. I phelt compelled to post this thing.
ouch no way
I think one has to put this into historical perspective, as several posters above have, very well.
Castrati practices were not unusual around the world up to the end of the 19th century (roughly the time China ended the practice). In the West, Pope Leo XIII unofficially ended the form of (involuntary) mutilation of non-criminals long practiced on select members of Roman Catholic Church's chiors in 1878, and by 1898, only 6 castrati remained in church employ, apparently physically confined to the Sistine Chapel in Rome in a particularly odd barbarity. Pius X formalized the ban in 1903, and the last castrati died (fairly young) in 1922.
Physical castration - as punishment for crime, was however, used throughout contemporary times. The last country I am aware of to still practice de jure castration is the Czech Republic. From 1998 to 2008, the sentence was carried out 94 times. Unlike the 19th century variety though, I'm assuming they use anaesthetic.
btw, the US State of Virginia had a statute, enacted in 1778, under Thomas Jefferson no less, that required judicial castration as punishment for sodomy and polygamy. It's unclear to me how many times the punishment was actually carried out, if it all, or exactly when it quietly disappeared off the books in Richmond, sometime in the mid 19th century. I'm hoping it was never used. Someone told me that South Carolina may have had a similar statute at some point. Oh well.. I guess Governor Appalachian Trail Sanford would have been short an organ...
I am just going to throw this out there - honstly, reading that male castration is worse than FGM, or foot binding or just worse in general....I don't get that.
Having your genitals mutilated or taken away, having your feet bound - they are ALL atrocious! ANY time something is done to a child a man or a woman and they have to be held down for it? It's bad! Plain and simple!
I respect the fact that men are and have always been very sensitive about their manhood, but please let's just remember this is all horrible! If it was their CHOICE (adults) and it was done with anethstesia and clean tools - that's one thing, even if we don't understand it.
It's a whole other thing when it's done so barbarically.
This "Death of thousand cuts" really illustrates the peaceful, compassionate, loving and kind Chinese culture.
Re the entry from Unmitigated Gall....WTF?! Does no one else think those comments were strange? This person "imagines" a rape scenario in graphic and repeated detail and shares it with us! I suspect he/she is using this forum to...well...oh yuck!
Just have read all your comments, very good and well-written
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, all commetts are reagarding the topic, nice job you have done!
Thank you for this information, really nice report, I am glad to be here english writing.
I'm amazed at the loose use of the word "eunuch"! These boys were made nuter. Without sexual parts. Not just reproductive removal but the ability to have sexual pleasure. (At least from the lap.) Most of the practice only took the testicles and scrotum. They boubled the chance of death by going for all of it. You think a guy gets grumpy after a week without pleasure? I'd figure that a person that never gets it would be outright heartless. Even if dutiful.
OK, correcting myself. Most European castrations only took the sack. Late Greeks, Roman and up to American slavers. I remember seeing a device from a slave ship that was a clamp with a ring for holding the penis out of the way. The clamp and handles end formed a flat surface to run the red hot knife down.
I think that the mutilation of others falls under the idea of treating people as property. This could be slaves, subjects (royal or joined), or gender. Look at the mutilation in military hazings that gave blood pins and red wings. Not that it compares.
There were also accounts of "kinder" birth control methods where the urethra was opened behind the scrotum and a forward section removed. I think it was an African tribal technique.
Who said anyone has to die in order for a practice to be deemed as inhumane? Why are humans so keen on modifying OTHER people's bodies to fit their view of beauty or culture? Foot-binding, eunuchs, piercings, docking, circumcision... it's all the same.
Do it to yourself if you like it so much!