Monday, January 17, 2005

Eunuch

tattoo_huan4guan1 (eunuch)

This tattoo was spotted at BMEzine.com. This person probably would never guessed his macho tattoo said "eunuch". For those who are not familiar with the concept or the term of "eunuch":

A eunuch is a castrated human male. The castration can be only of the testes, or also include the penis, known as a penectomy (often with a tube inserted to keep the urethra open, called a urethral rerouting). The practice was established before 700 BC and accounts of eunuchs are known throughout history.

In ancient China castration was both a traditional punishment (until the Sui Dynasty) and a means of gaining employment in the Imperial service. At the end of the Ming Dynasty there were 70,000 eunuchs ( huàn'guān, or tàijiān) in the Imperial palace. The value of such employment—certain eunuchs gained immense power that may supersede that of the prime ministers—was such that self-castration had to be made illegal. The number of eunuchs in Imperial employ had fallen to 470 in 1912, when the employment ceased. The justification of the employment of eunuchs as high-ranking civil servants was that, since they were incapable of having children, they would not be tempted to seize power and start a dynasty.

22 comments:

  1. Ye gods!

    That's about as bad as "L'il Bitch".

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  2. That's horrible!! Unless... well... perhaps he has been emasuclated already...?

    I always thought that another reason why eunuchs were castrated was so that they couldn't sleep with any of the emperor's women.

    If you flip the two characters around, you get 宦官 guānhuàn, which just means "government official", no castration implied.

    (btw, I believe 太監 is tàijiàn in Mandarin...)

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  3. That's the funniest one yet!

    Keep going, this is so much fun :)

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  4. Huh! Now, there's a small, small possibility they picked this after being told it ment 'homosexual'. I know at least one gay fellow who had a Kanji he swore ment 'gay'. (I didn't know enough Kanji to know at the time)

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  5. Unlikely, I knew him second hand to other friends of mine in the late 1990's, and don't have any photographs of him or his tattoo. Though now I wish I had gotten some. I'll enquire through our mutual friends if they still know him. I am aware there are terms in Japanese that can mean various types of homosexuality, so I took him at his word, but now I wish I had the sence to take a photograph :)

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  6. Considering that this is from BMEzine.com, it's possible -- likely, even -- that the bearer of this tattoo was fully aware of its meaning when he got it.

    BME == Body Modification. If you know what I mean.

    Just sayin'.

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  7. Just a random comment regarding Hanzi Smatter.
    Is this just a site for mis-appropriated use of chinese characters and not proper sayings or names? I'm 1/2 chinese myself and plan on getting my chinese name, Llew Yuen Wah (liao yuan hua 廖遠華) on my back shoulder. Does anyone else with a proper name usually go on doing this? Some feedback would be nice.

    P.S. No comments about llew bei sie -o-

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  8. haha, thats funny.
    Sucks for him.

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  9. I've never met or heard of anyone who tattooed his/her own name on themselves, so I imagine such a practice is probably not too common. Though I suppose it's better than tattooing your GF's name on your arm (something like "Winona Forever") and then having a breakup with her sometime in the future...

    At any rate, it doesn't look like yours would be a misuse of Chinese characters, so you should be fine here.

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  10. It indeed is rare to tattoo one's name on yourself. Might be more romantic to do a poem or a phrase with you name hidden in it, like, in your case,

    夢廖紅樓
    路遠華鄉

    or

    夢廖故園月
    路遠華廈門

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  11. Yes I am a Eunuch and I do know what the text means. I had a friend do the calligraphy for me in Chinese.

    And yes I am a macho Eunuch. I became a Eunuch for a myriad of very personal reasons.

    Bubba
    http://iam.bmezine.com/?Bubba

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  12. I just hope that one of those reasons was not for the sake of advancement in the Chinese bureacracy.

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  13. Bubba, I have only one question for you: why did you decide to become a eunuch?

    I can't think of one single reason would persuade a person to castrate himself. I have never thought "macho" and "eunuch" would be able to fit into one sentence.

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  14. BME has quite a lively eunuch community, many of whom were castrated as part of a fetish or spiritual act. Some cut off small snips over time, others lop off the penis and/or testicles.

    http://www.eunuch.org/ is hosted by BME, and is for people who wish to become, or are, eunuchs by fetishistic desire.

    Welcome to the internet... everybody is your neighbor, including the people who make the freaks look normal.

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  15. I would like to take this opportunity to clearify some things. First I dont know of any eunuchs that were castrated because of a fetish. There are as many reasons as there are eunuchs. As for tattoos, I also have a tattoo that says eunuch it is different than Bubba's and I have my name tattooed on my sholder. You can see both on my IAM page at BME and if you have an extreme membership and go to the eunuch section and dig down many pages you will find pictures of me and several hundres other eunuchs.

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  16. Its me again, for those of you who want more information, go to BME home page, from there look up articals. you will see them from Lizard man etc. look for the one on eunuchs, there you can read my comments as well as my ex-wife's. Or you can come in the chat room at eunuch.org, I host this site and come in most evenings.

    River

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  17. Fetish? LOL! Riverwide is right. There are as many reasons for becoming a eunuch as there are eunuch.

    I was castrated for just plain old every day ordinary RELIEF! And I thank the Universe for that; I'm at peace at last.

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  18. To answer a few of tian's questions, there are indeed many logical reasons for why one would choose to castrate himself. For instance, if you desire immunity to much troublesome prostate diseases (hits 80% men after 40) as well as testicular cancer, wish to avoid increased blood cloths & high pressure later in life, go bald and suffer of extensive libido, or simply want to reduce stress and experience more calmer life then castration might be for you. Castration increases lifespan in all male & female mammals, and is a direct sign that sexual reproduction runs at the expense of organism's resources, thus reducing the overall lifespan and general health of the organism. Also, if you consider that most of the male sexual characteristics (aggressiveness, body hair, odor, increased blood coagulation to prevent excess bleeding from fighting wounds) were designed to work at a mileu that resembles today's chimpanzees in the wild, they can easily become a burden in a modern civilized society. And finally, there are religious reasons for wich many men feel they're better off their nuts to serve God (The Skoptzy, Cybele etc.). Hope this helps! Also see:

    hometown.aol.com/USCCCN/castration.index.html

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  19. yes, yes, those reasons are all valid, but back to the tattoo.

    that word has specific connotations, meaning you have to be an eunuch serving the emperor, as "guan" (the 2nd character) means "government official"...

    so unless you've found an emperor to serve, it's still somewhat wrong... :p

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  20. Interesting to me in that for years I was under the impression that 閹 was "eunuch"...

    As a westerner with little knowledge of these characters, I could easily be wrong, of course.

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  21. Just to let you all know, Bubba (who posted several comments ago!) is telling the truth. I know him through another friend who is also a eunuch, (as am I!) This tattoo was no mistake.

    He knows that "KanGan" refers to a eunuch, or - more precisely - it refers to the role of "court official", who were eunuchs (although a term largely obsolete in modern Japanese, it will also be understood by a Chinese)

    As far as I know 'kangan' does not - and has never - referred to anyone who is gay. Neither in Chinese nor Japanese culture.

    Aside from the well-used "homo" and "gei" (katakana) the other 'gay word' people here were mentioning could have been "O-kama" (kettle) written in katakana. Which is a pejorative term used to refer to gays which is quite offensive.

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