Customer Reviews

Chinese Eunuchs: The Structure of Intimate Politics (Tut Books)

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This is a book, that would waste space on anyone's bookshelves.

In 1877 a paper was presented by G. Carter Stent before the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. It was on Chinese Eunuchs. The paper contained many inaccuracies and much portentous twaddle. Some time later it was translated into Japanese. Professor Mitamura read it and then wrote, in Japanese, a book on eunuchs and based it substantially on Stent's article. Stent's inaccuracies were blithely reproduced. Mitamura's book was translated into English. Thus the nonsense was not only continued but even compounded.

Mitamura is revolted by the subject of eunuchs, though that does not stop him from wallowing in the worst of Stent's detailed descriptions of one of the three methods of producing a eunuch. Perhaps this, as he says, is "due to the feeling of disgust evoked by he word 'eunuch'." He implies that all eunuchs were "swept clean", and had all their private parts removed. Not so. This only occurred during a short period in Chinese history when a canard was perpetrated that eunuchs could regenerate. Removal of all the sexual parts is a drastic operation. Most of those subjected to the enforced treatment died.

Mitanura happily states that "All the eunuchs underwent a change of voice after castration." Again rubbish. Change of voice does not take place. Young boys who still have their treble retain that treble. Males who have a deep voice retain that deep voice. And he repeats Carter Stent's assertion that eunuchs stink and " can be detected by smell 300 metres away." More pure biased twaddle.

Mitamura is not generous to his source in spite of so much of Stent's trash being plagiarised. The original paper is dismissed casually in the Bibliography as "Essay."

The publishers quote only one review of the book, a snippet from the well known Mainichi Daily News, which says the book is "An eye-opening, knee closing study." It's a pity, professor, that you didn't study the subject better.

I don't recommend this book. Ther are so many omissions and mistranslations, in addition transformations by Judeo-Christians' biases. For example, Mr. Mitamura never used the word like "perversion" "perverts" or "perverted sex", he just wrote nanshoku(male/male love), male-boy lovers, or male/male sex. If possible, I recommend to read his original book written in easy Japanese, and much more precise in detail, in addition very cheap

Upon reading the book "Chinese Eunuchs The Structure of Intimate Politics", by Mr. Taisuke Mitamura, i found the structure to be very unorganized and at times, hard to follow. Given, the book starts off well, with vivid descriptions of what a eunuch was and how they became eunuchs, but in the later chapters the book, (or at least i felt) went off tangent. What i mean is that it began to describe the roles of "fearsome wives" and then into the "Yellow Age". Maybe i missed the essence (albeit i read the book very quickly) but i thought the focus was in the role of eunuchs in intimate politics.

C.R.Bates above says that Mitamura "repeats [George] Carter Stent's assertion that eunuchs stink and `can be detected by smell 300 metres away.' More pure biased twaddle."

Never having been to China nor studied the place, I cannot comment on the accuracy of George's paper to the Royal Asiatic Society. However, my reading of the paper is that George is saying Chinese people in his time "speak of them as `stinking eunuchs', and aver that they can smell a eunuch for half-a-li." In other words he does not state this as a fact, but rather reports it without comment as something said by others.