Rabbit God

Tu Er Shen (兔兒神 or 兔神) (The Leveret Spirit) is a Chinese deity who manages the love and sex between homosexual men. His name literally means "Rabbit Deity" or "Rabbit God".

The deity originates from a folk tale in 17th century Fujian province. In the story, a soldier falls in love with a provincial official and spies on him to see him naked. The official has the soldier tortured and killed, but the latter returns from the dead in the form of a young hare, or leveret, in the dream of a village elder. The leveret demands that local men build a temple to him, where they can burn incense in the interest of "affairs of men". The story ends:

"According to the customs of Fujian province, it is acceptable for a man and boy to form a bond [qi] and to speak to each other as if to brothers. Hearing the villager relate the dream, the other villagers strove to contribute money to erect the temple. They kept silent about this secret vow, which they quickly and eagerly fulfilled.  Others begged to know their reason for building the temple, but they did not find out. They all went there to pray."

=Legend=

According to Zi Bu Yu (子不語), a book written by Yuan Mei (袁枚, a Qing dynasty writer), Tu Er Shen was originally a man named Hu Tianbao (胡天保) who fell in love with a very handsome imperial inspector of Fujian Province. One day, Hu Tianbao was caught peeping at the inspector through a crack in a bathroom wall, at which point he confessed his reluctant affection for the other man. The imperial inspector had Hu Tianbao sentenced to death by beating. One month after Hu Tianbao's death, he is said to have appeared to an elder from his hometown in a dream, claiming that since his crime was one of love, underworld officials of the Chinese Hades had decided to redress the injustice by appointing him the god and safeguarder of homosexual affections.

After his dream, the village elder erected a shrine to Hu Tianbao which became very popular in Fujian province, so much so that in late Qing times, the cult of Hu Tianbao was targeted for extermination by the Qing government.

The deity can be seen as an alternative to Yue Lao (The Old Man Under the Moon, 月下老人), the matchmaker god for heterosexual relations.

A slang term for homosexual in late imperial China was tuzi (兔子, rabbit) and rabbits became symbols of homoeroticism. That is why Hu Tianbao is referred to as the Rabbit Deity/God though, in fact, he has nothing to do with rabbits and should not be confused with tuer ye (兔兒爺）, the rabbit on the moon or Jade Rabbit, sometimes mistakenly referred to also as the Rabbit God.

=Government suppression=

In temples, images of Hu Tianbao show him in an embrace with another man.

The sense that the villagers must keep the reason for the temple secret in the story may relate to pressure from the central Chinese government to abandon the practice. Qing official Zhu Gui (1731-1807), a grain tax circuit intendant of Fujian in 1765, strove to standardise the morality of the people with a "Prohibition of Licentious Cults". One cult which he found particularly troublesome was the cult of Hu Tianbao. As he reports,

"The image is of two men embracing one another; the face of one is somewhat hoary with age, the other tender and pale. [Their temple] is commonly called the small official temple. All those debauched and shameless rascals who on seeing youths or young men desire to have illicit intercourse with them pray for assistance from the plaster idol. Then they make plans to entice and obtain the objects of their desire. This is known as the secret assistance of Hu Tianbao. Afterwards they smear the idol's mouth with pork intestine and sugar in thanks."

=Modern interpretations=

Although Tu Er Shen is popularly revered by some temples, a number of Taoist schools throughout history have considered homosexuality as sexual misconduct.

The story may be an attempt to mythologise a system of male same-sex marriages in Fujian, attested to by the scholar-bureaucrat Shen Defu and the writer Li Yu. The older man in the union would play the masculine role as a qixiong or "adoptive older brother", paying a "bride price" to the family of the younger man - it was said virgins fetched higher prices - who became the qidi, or "adoptive younger brother". Li Yu described the ceremony, "They do not skip the three cups of tea or the six wedding rituals - it is just like a proper marriage with a formal wedding." The qidi then moved into the household of the qixiong, where he would be completely dependent on him, be treated as a son-in-law by the qixiongs parents, and possibly even help raise children adopted by the qixiong. These marriages could last as long as 20 years before both men were expected to marry women in order to procreate.

Keith Stevens reports seeing images like these in temples in Fujian (Hokkien)-speaking communities in Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand and Singapore. Stevens refers to these images as 'brothers' or 'princes' and calls them Taibao (太保), which is probably a perversion of Tianbao. Stevens was usually told that the two figures in an embrace were brothers, and only in one temple in Fujian was he told that they were homosexuals. A photo of an image from a temple in Kaohsiung is provided by Stevens on page 434 of his article, "The wrestling princes", Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society - Volume 42, 2002.

Sadly, the history of Hu Tianbao has been largely forgotten even by the temple keepers.

=Rabbit Temple in Taiwan=

In 2005, a Taoist priest in a Taiwanese temple claimed to have made spiritual contact with the Rabbit God and decided that should 5 same-sex couples approach his temple for prayers or spiritual help, he would establish a new temple specifically dedicated to the Rabbit God.

Although at that time, even though the temple did not have specific programs for gay couples, 5 couples did indeed turn up. The priest took this as a sign and officially established the Rabbit Temple. It is located at No. 12, Alley 37, Yonghe Road Section 1, Yonghe City, Taipei.

Assessment
"Religions both in the West and the East have long pushed the homosexual community into the margin. But providence is benign, and love is given to all human beings as equals." Lu Weiming (盧威明), Taoist priest.

New deities and even new religions often emerge to address needs or during times of social change. The founding of the Temple of the Rabbit God in Taipei is one such example.

Since its opening, the temple has attracted not only same sex-couples from Taiwan and other parts of the world but also singles in search of their future partner. On the side wall of the temple is a notice board for visitors to leave a message for the Rabbit God. It may be a request for help in their search for love or a thank-you note.

The emergence of the Gay Rabbit God Temple may be contextualised vis-a-vis 2 related trends in Taiwan:

With regard to social attitudes on homosexual issues, Taiwan is one of the most progressive societies in Asia and in the Chinese world. In fact, the 2003 Taiwan Pride was the first gay pride parade in any Chinese-majority society. In Taiwan Pride 2005, the then Taipei's Mayor Ma Ying-Jeou, 馬英九, participated in the opening ceremony and even declared that "being gay is a natural state that cannot be repressed".

Secondly, Taiwan has the culture of Yue Lao worship. Yue Lao, 月老, or "Old man under the moon" is a Chinese deity who oversees love affairs. In many Taiwanese temples, there is a chamber dedicated to his worship. Couples or singles in search of love leave messages there. The Rabbit God is thus the counterpart of Yue Lao and is in charge of homosexual relationships.

Looking at world religion in toto, a deity in charge of gay relationships is refreshing news. In many countries, religious condemnation and criminal persecution of homosexuals is very common.

In a landscape of bigotry and ignorance, the Rabbit God arises as one who not only does not condemn gay individuals but assists them in their search for love. That explains the international interest in the Rabbit Temple.

=See also=


 * Homosexuality in China

=References=


 * Keith Stevens, "The wrestling princes", Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society - Volume 42, 2002, pp.431-434.
 * The Ultra Supreme Elder Lord's Scripture of Precepts(太上老君戒經), in "The Orthodox Tao Store"(正統道藏).
 * Kang, Wenqing, 2009, "Obsession: Male Same-Sex Relations in China, 1900–1950", Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, pp 19, 37-38.
 * The Ultra Supreme Elder Lord's Scripture of Precepts(太上老君戒經), in "The Orthodox Tao Store"(正統道藏)
 * Stevens, Keith. "The wrestling princes". Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society - Volume 42, 2002, pp.431-434
 * Szonyi, Michael "The Cult of Hu Tianbao and the Eighteenth-Century Discourse of Homosexuality." Late Imperial China - Volume 19, Number 1, June 1998, pp. 1-25, The Johns Hopkins University Press.
 * The Great Dictionary of Taoism"(道教大辭典), by Chinese Taoism Association, published in China in 1994, ISBN 7-5080-0112-5/B.054
 * Yuan Mei (袁枚), Zi Bu Yu (子不語)
 * CW Chan, article in Chinatownlogy, "Gay Rabbit God Temple 兔儿庙", 2011.

=Acknowledgements=

This article was compiled by Roy Tan.