Going through history class, the most fascinating thing about Chinese history was eunuchs. Disregard the fact that I’m Chinese and find many other things interesting about my heritage, but I’ve always seen myself as American before being Chinese. After all, I’m much better at English than Chinese and grew up in New York my whole life.
But back to eunuchs — I don’t know if there’s a Freudian reason for my fascination at all. I just couldn’t imagine, well, what it’s like to be castrated and have to bear the societal stigma that comes with it.
Recently, I’ve stumbled upon some research on the last eunuch in Chinese history. His name was Sun Yaoting, and according to Jocelyn Chatterton and Matthew Bultitude at de Historia Urologie Europace, Sun Yaoting was castrated at only 8 years old to save his father from bankruptcy. Sun Yaoting died a few days before he turned 94, at his home in a Beijing temple.
In Chinese, the term 出家 is the term eunuchs are colloquially known as, which means to “leave home.” They were called that term because they could never usually come back home because of the shame associated with the family.
Jeremiah Jenne at China Channel says the history of Chinese eunuchs is one of “fascination and revulsion.” Many eunuchs were known for their ambition and their schemes for power. Other eunuchs were known to be a source of anxiety for many at the court — they would appear more feminine than most men and lack facial hair. Early castration would also lead eunuchs to be taller and have longer limbs.
“In the foreign gaze, eunuchs became an analog for a decrepit China, feminine symbols of a decaying imperial system — a view perpetuated by 20th-century Chinese reformers and revolutionaries,” Jenne says.
However, the ambitious and powerful eunuchs were the exception rather than the norm. Most worked as servants within the imperial palace, and Sun Yaoting was featured by historian Jia Yinghua in The Last Eunuch of China. His life was ordinary for a eunuch, but he became well-known because he lived longer than most.
Sun was born outside Tianjin, currently the fourth biggest city in China. Sun’s father convinced him to let him cut off his genitalia since it was the only way he could work in the palace, and then possibly grow in influence from his access to the emperor. Apparently, one person in their village had grown very wealthy after becoming a eunuch.
According to Jenne, Sun’s father put him on a bed and then used a knife to remove his scrotum and penis. After the procedure, a tube was inserted into Sun’s wound to stop the urethra from scarring closed, with bandages of paper soaked with oil. The only anesthetic was hot chili oil, according to Seth Faison at the New York Times. Jia said Sun was in bed for three days and could barely move for two months.
“He had a very tragic life. He had thought it was worthwhile for his father, but the sacrifice was in vain,” Jia Yinghua said.
Sun was castrated in 1910, and Puyi, the final emperor of China, would abdicate in 1912, but Puyi still reigned as a puppet emperor. He fled north to Manchuria, where he would lead a puppet regime. The boy emperor lived in the Forbidden City and played tennis, but he didn’t have many concubines and wives compared to the emperors who came before him. The eunuchs in Puyi’s palace did more housework, cooking, and bookkeeping. Sun himself was involved in balancing the financial accounts, working under Puyi’s uncle and wife.
Sun said eunuchs usually kept their private parts and organs to be buried with them one day. In doing so, they would be reincarnated as “full” men, so they kept their penis and scrotum with them in a jar. However, Sun Yaoting had his jar destroyed during China’s Cultural Revolution by his family. His family feared being punished by the Red Guards for having a symbol of China’s imperial past. That day, as well as the day his genitals were cut off, brought tears to his eyes.
During the 1930s, the Japanese ruled a puppet government with Puyi, while Sun stayed in the Imperial City. Later, after the Chinese Civil War, Sun became a Communist official.
The details of Sun’s life as the last eunuch in Chinese history were only possible with his close friendship with Jia, who is a Chinese historian. Sun had apparently become more distrustful of his family after they threw away his “treasure,” and Sun only cried two times in his life — the day he was castrated, and the day his family threw away his organs, in the words of Emma Graham-Harrison at Reuters.
Sun told Jia that Puyi had ambiguous sexuality. He was apparently not very interested in his wife, and was instead attracted to a eunuch who “looked like a pretty girl with his tall, slim figure, handsome face and creamy white skin.” According to Barbara Demick at the Los Angeles Times, Sun also knew many other secrets of the imperial family, including Puyi’s first wife having a child out of wedlock.
Once the imperial family was thrown out of the palace, Sun and other eunuchs were left without money and without a home. They lived in a home they called the “Temple of the Eunuchs.” Many eunuchs drowned themselves, but Sun was able to survive since he was literate, and he became the caretaker of a temple. There, he would return to a normal life.
Sun Yaoting’s fame largely comes from how long he lived — being the last eunuch in Chinese history, he reminds us that eunuchs weren’t caricatures of ambition and greed, nor are they symbols of femininity in men. Sun Yaoting shows that most eunuchs were just regular human beings who worked to make ends meet.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: From a Tang-era tomb artist in the Public Domain