The Last Eunuch of China..

..the life of Sun Yaoting by Jia Yinghua. Thomas kindly sent the book to my house a few days ago. I just finished it this morning. My second book of the year (not bad, huh?), a narration of the life in the Imperial Palace as well as its last days in China. How was it? It was interesting enough for me to finish it over a period of 4 days. Actually it took 2 days as I was too busy to pick up the book on the other 2 days. I supposed that is indication enough of the book's readability.

It gives more than a glimpse into the lives of eunuchs, or castrated males. My childhood stories of eunuchs were these guys had their manhood were cut off so that they could serve in the Palace and the ladies would be safe from extramarital affairs. But life was far from the rosy pictures painted. Enter the world of the Forbidden City and you find that it's intrigues and complexities are not much different from the outside world. Only difference is they are heaven mandated. Also, it's true this saying.. in the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. The peasants were ignorant. The (self-mandated) 'nobility' had the brains and knowledge; and they knew how to manipulate the fear in man. The one with knowledge rules!

A couple of things caught my interest in this book. First, the Imperial Family memang was too decadent to be of any real use to China. I guess China's descent (or ascent, depends from which perspective you look at it) into communism was necessary to purge the country of that largesse and excesses. It must be really fun to have all that power over their subjects. Imagine having eunuchs eat at your bidding and then you clap in glee!

Second, the eunuchs are no better. All the cheating, stealing, falsifying that took place right under the Emperor's eyes. But the Emperor was a mere puppet. The puppeteer was the Empress Dowager and the other court officials. Guess they must have found the Son of the Heaven idea rather convenient to own so as to command all that rights to Chung Kuo. And of course, if I were a puppet, I might as well live out my life minus the cares and woes... but Pu Yi (last Emperor of China) cut a sorry picture!

Third, poverty makes people do desperate things. That is nothing new too. Eunuchs' families dream of better life for the sons they castrated. Yet with the castration came shame cos these half-guys were considered a freak by the normal people.

Fourth, the importance of sons in to a Chinese. It's a curse not to have sons... that I know. But these days, as I grow older, I think sons or daughters - they are the same. Filial piety is expected of the son but these days, I see daughters being more filial than their brothers. Empress Dowager controlling the emperor? That's biasa... So many of the eunuchs adopted sons so that they will have sons to bury them. But unfortunately, many these 'sons', having grown up in a single-parent family and also great comfort, turned out to be your regular wealth disintegrators. They squander their adopted father's wealth in no time!

Fifth, eunuchs despite castration still went on to keep concubines, have weird sexual inclinations and normal ones too... the system of patronage existed too among them. In their hierarchy, the senior eunuchs did become very rich too. Sexual favours were also forced from them by the the Imperial household members. I learned that the testicles which were castrated were preserved so that when the eunuchs die, the testicles be buried with them, placed in their 'original place'.... so that when they are reincarnated, they'll be complete again. So these eunuchs carry their 'treasure' with them wherever they go. And many of them moved around a lot in those last days of old China.

After the Second World War, China was ripe for a revolution. The taboos, hocus pocus beliefs shackled the people, right from the top to the bottom. And like the Roman Empire, the Imperial Family was so decadent that by the time, as the rest of the world opened up and started looking for more land and resources, China was ripe for the plucking.

There are lots of insights to be gleaned from this book. It's interesting cos it's a historical narrative, one that tells me that human nature has remained the same. Sun Yaoting died in 1994 and with his death, the last eunuch. I'd give this a read.