The Vision of the Concupiscence of Men: Seen by Tu’er Shen

According to “What the Master Would Not Discuss (Chinese: 子不語)”, a book written by Yuan Mei during the Qing dynasty, Tu’er Shen was a man called Hu Tianbao. Hu was originally a man who fell in love with a very handsome imperial inspector of Fujian Province. One day he was caught peeping on the inspector through a bathroom wall, at which point he confessed his reluctant affections 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 a man from his hometown in a dream, claiming that since his crime was one of love, the underworld officials decided to right the injustice by appointing him the god and safeguarder of homosexual affections.

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