> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Van-Gulik-La-vie-sexuelle-dans-la-Chine-ancienne/...

> Cartier Michel. Gulik (Robert van) : La vie sexuelle dans l'ancienne Chine, trad. de l'anglais par Louis Evrard.
In: Revue française d'histoire d'outre-mer, tome 60, n°218, 1er trimestre 1973. pp. 133-134.… ; (en ligne),
URL : https://www.persee.fr/doc/outre_0300-9513_1973_num_60_218_1668_t1_0133_0000_1

La vida sexual en la antigua China

El sinólogo R. H. van Gulik, al que debemos varias obras valiosas, publicó poco antes de morir un libro monumental y fundamental sobre la vida sexual en la antigua China. (Octavio Paz)

Etonnant ( )

Livre d'histoire. Passionnant. ( )

The Cloud and Rain, before the Qing

Although Robert van Gulik/Gao Lo-pei/高羅佩, was not a discoverer, I could not help thinking of the similarities with Richard Burton when I read this book. Both were highly literate polyglots and colourful products of the colonial age, who wanted to give back some of the history to the cultures they studied. Both also showed a great interest in sexuality. Where Richard Burton concentrated on India and the Arab world, Robert van Gulik’s main interest was China. Besides a set of detective novels that gave a vivid impression of ancient Chinese culture (and that were supposedly mandatory reading for American diplomats to China), Robert van Gulik also produced some academic works related to Chinese history.

This is Van Gulik’s best known academic work, which after 50 years is still often quoted. It covers a single theme across most of Chinese history, from the beginning until the fall of the Ming dynasty. From the earliest available sources, we see an interplay between Taoism and Confucianism, with Buddhism playing a secondary role. Although the Christian concept of sin was absent in Chinese culture, Confucianism tried to constrain sexuality (and women), as it considered it a threat to stability and order. Taoism on the other hand stressed the importance and power of human sexuality. With its mystical and alchemic nature, Taoism saw sexuality as the path to eternal life for men. Taoism’s philosophy is based upon the idea that the feminine (yin) and the masculine (yang) cannot do without the other. Although intercourse was often called a “battle”, various sexual positions could cure different diseases and vaginal fluids could greatly increase the strength of men, particularly if the woman enjoyed the congress also. The “cloud and rain” (云雨/ Yün Yü), as sex was called (cloud symbolising the womb and rain the semen), on auspicious moments and sex with lots of women was also considered greatly beneficial. Intercourse without ejaculation (“coïtus reservatus”) by using the left hand to pressure the area between the scrotum and the anus would nourish the ni-huan spot in the brain through the dorsal column of the spine, creating the Elixer of Life and consequently greatly increase the chance of a long life or even accomplish immortality. Strangely, this theory did not change much over time, although it seems easy enough to falsify. And although China became decidedly more prudish among the late Ming and the Qing, reminiscences of it exist in Chinese culture even today.

In between the Taoist fireworks, the author gives all sorts of details about (family) life among the scholarly classes throughout the various dynasties before the Qing. The book covers the hierarchy of wives and concubines (“a husband is heaven and cannot be shirked”, after all), the emphasis on a woman’s modesty, as well as expenses in upper class brothels and the quality of erotic paintings and novels, and the relationship with Tantrism.

Somewhat out of the blue, Van Gulik finishes his monograph with a paragraph on the resilience of Chinese people and their culture. Overseas policy makers may take note that its fundamental principles are static. The Chinese are utterly capable of renewal (or even temporary outside dominance), but it is always self renewal, "because of their supreme confidence in the strength of their blood and their number, and their conviction that in the end they will always conquer the conquerors, both in the material and spiritual field."

In general, the book is stronger on description than an interpretation, but in this case I did not find that a disadvantage (it also pays only limited attention to other sexual orientations than plain vanilla hetero sexuality, claiming that there was not much else). If your Latin is not as it probably should be, make sure you get a translated version, or the 2002 edition, where “all Latin has for the first time been translated into unambiguous English, thus making the full text widely available to an academic audience”. The era of polyglots like Van Gulik, who knew Dutch, Malay, Javanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Latin, Greek, French, German, English, Russian, Sanskrit, Blackfoot Indian, Tibetan, and Japanese, is clearly over. ( )