This is a beautiful text about Hu Tianbao/Tu'er Shen, but it is a shame that the myth has been distorted at several points:
- Hu Tianbao was called "Rabbit" because he was a man who loved men, as "Rabbit" is an old Chinese slang term for them, not because he had any personal interest in the animal.
- He was a soldier, a warrior, not a bon vivant as the text suggests.
- It also does not say that he liked to secretly watch the officer bathe naked.
- He was not only sentenced to death; he was also tortured before being killed.
- And he appeared in a dream to a village elder in Fujian (location not given in the text), not to a boy in love with his schoolmate. It was this elder who gathered other men from the village to build the first temple of Tu'er Shen.
The distortion of some details and the ignoring of others shows that the research into the myth of this god was not done carefully.
This is a beautiful text about Hu Tianbao/Tu'er Shen, but it is a shame that the myth has been distorted at several points:
- Hu Tianbao was called "Rabbit" because he was a man who loved men, as "Rabbit" is an old Chinese slang term for them, not because he had any personal interest in the animal.
- He was a soldier, a warrior, not a bon vivant as the text suggests.
- It also does not say that he liked to secretly watch the officer bathe naked.
- He was not only sentenced to death; he was also tortured before being killed.
- And he appeared in a dream to a village elder in Fujian (location not given in the text), not to a boy in love with his schoolmate. It was this elder who gathered other men from the village to build the first temple of Tu'er Shen.
The distortion of some details and the ignoring of others shows that the research into the myth of this god was not done carefully.