Uncovering Chinese Mythology: A Beginner's Guide Into The World of Chinese Myths, Enchanting Tales, Folklore, Legendary Heroes, Gods, Divine Beings, and Mythical Creatures by Lucas Russo

Author:Lucas Russo [Russo, Lucas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-06-18T00:00:00+00:00

Tu’er Shen

Tu’er Shen is an unusual god: He is specifically responsible for love between men. He was mostly revered in Fujian, where the story of his mortal life was said to take place.

The story of Tu’er Shen was written down in a collection of supernatural stories in 1788, but the story and the cult itself are definitely older (Szonyi, 1998). According to the tale, the god used to be a mortal man named Hu Tianbao, who lived in the Fujian province. One day, he saw an inspector of the province. The man was very handsome, and Hu immediately fell in love with him. He was so obsessed that he sneaked up to the inspector’s home and peeped at him through a hole in a bathroom wall.

Unfortunately for Hu, he was caught. Asked what he was doing, he revealed his affection for the inspector. Furious, the official sentenced Hu to death by beating. And that would be the sad end of Hu Tianbao’s life, if it weren’t for the gods.

A month after Hu’s death, a man from his village had a dream. In this dream, Hu appeared in a form of a rabbit and told him that the gods of the underworld decided to be merciful for him: Because his crime sprung out of love, they decided to make him a god of homosexual relations and to keep safe those who were in a similar position to him. Prompted by the dream, the villagers built a temple to Hu, who from that point on was called Tu’er Shen. The rabbit became a symbol of homosexuality.

The folk cult of Tu’er Shen was problematic for the Chinese government. At around the same time when Hu Tianbao’s story was written down, attempts were made by Fujian officials to suppress the cult, and the depiction of Tu’er Shen embracing another man was found “licentious” (Szonyi, 1998). Over the 19th and 20th century, the cult was partly suppressed, partly forgotten. It was only in 2006 when Lu Wei-ming, a Taoist priest from Taiwan, erected a new temple of Tu’er Shen in New Taipei City (Gold, 2015). Today, thousands of people visit the temple every year, and its priests also perform gay marriage ceremonies.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.