Please visit the site of the LYC - San Diego's website for an excellent account of
"Long Yang". We often encounter creative interpretations of Long Yang. We shall trust your
imagination as to what they might be. Please be assured that it is rather innocuous.
The Story of Long Yang
Long Yang was a handsome youth who lived in ancient China. His name has come
to be synonymous with male-male emotional and sexual relationships. Long means
dragon, a mythological creature representing power and elegance, usually used by
the emperor as a symbol of imperial authority. Yang means strength or brightness
and is the male component in the dichotomy of yin and yang. The name Long Yang,
in other words, carries a very good image of strength and male virility.
In the historical record that has preserved his story he is known as Lord
Long Yang (Long Yang jun), since he was companion to the king and so in polite
court society he was addressed in an honorific way. But in fact we don’t know
anything about his background or whether he was officially awarded a royal
title. He might have come from a prominent family whose parents had brought him
to the attention of the king as a way of improving their son’s chances for
success in government. Or he may have been a working boy, laboring on the palace
grounds or assisting the various servants of the royal court.
The writing that introduces Lord Long Yang is the Janguoce, translated as the
Records of the Warring States. This period of Chinese history is called the
Warring States ( janguo shiqi 481-221 BCE), when many small kingdoms spread
across the north China plain contended with each other for territory and wealth.
It was a time when the ways of conducting warfare were changing, from the
individual combat of aristocrats to the use of large armies of conscripted foot
soldiers. Often through diplomatic means but equally often through military
adventure, the numerous kingdoms lived in a world of intrigue and uncertainty.
Eventually China would become known for a complex bureaucracy and for very
detailed record keeping, but in the days of the Warring States period nothing
was uniform, not even the written language, so the historical records we have
are somewhat fragmentary. Still, the story of Long Yang has been known in China
and commented on by scholars for the past two thousand years.
Long Yang became a favorite of King Anxi who reigned for thirty-three years
from 276 to 243 BCE. Long Yang was probably between the ages of fourteen or
fifteen when the king fell in love with him. We know from later periods of
Chinese history that boys might be as young as eleven or twelve, but usually no
older than nineteen or twenty when they were selected to be a companion to the
ruler, with many instances of fourteen and fifteen year olds recorded. Assuming
Long Yang was selected at about age fifteen sometime in the latter years of King
Anxi’s reign, we can calculate he might have been born around the year 260
BCE. We’re on slightly firmer ground by guessing that Long Yang must have been
the most important of the king’s favorites since an incident involving him was
selected for inclusion in the historical records.
Anxi was ruler of the Wei kingdom which lasted for 220 years, from 445 to 225
BCE. In each kingdom the head of the royal family, as king, held ultimate
authority, which included the power to select anyone he so desired to be his
sexual companion. Most kings had a number of sexual favorites, females and young
boys, who lived in the palace compounds and attended upon the king whenever
summoned. The scholars and government officials who worked with the king on
affairs of state regularly cautioned their king, they did so throughout
China’s early recorded history, to be circumspect about the degree of
attention and time given to these favorites. The king should always remember, he
was advised, that his main duties lie in governing the kingdom and so he ought
to limit the time he spent with his favorites enjoying his personal erotic
pleasures.
The king’s advisors certainly didn’t care if the sexual partner of the
ruler was male or female as long as the sexual pleasures of the bedchamber did
not interfere with the responsibilities of being the ranking official over the
government. Their thinking followed then what continues to be the general rule
about personal sexual conduct within most Asian societies today: you can do what
you wish in private, as long as your responsibilities toward family and society
are properly met.
The King and Long Yang grew very fond of each other, with Long Yang’s
boyish charms captivating the king, who nevertheless did manage to keep his
country running well. Indeed there were several major trading centers in the Wei
kingdom and commerce flourished. The Wei is also considered to have been a
pioneer in the use of large-scale irrigation systems for agriculture. But the
king did spend a lot of time admiring Long Yang’s charms and Long Yang, for
his part, could sometimes turn petulant and would sulk, because he knew that the
lusty king had a roving eye. Young Long Yang feared that the same glance that
had caught him and allowed him to live in the royal palace, might someday fall
on another lad. A well-known incident took place between them that illustrated
both Long Yang’s pouting and the king’s infatuation.
It is written in the Records of the Warring States, in the section of the
Records of Wei (weice) section four, that one day the king of Wei and Lord Long
Yang were relaxing in a boat while fishing within the palace grounds. Long Yang
caught several fish but then began to cry. The king was concerned and asked
young Long Yang to explain why he was upset. "Because I caught a
fish." "But why does that make you cry?" the king asked.
Lord Long Yang hesitated to answer, but when again pressed by the king he
replied, "I am thinking of all the fish your majesty may catch." The
king was puzzled, so Long Yang explained by saying, "When I caught the
first fish I was extremely pleased. But afterward I caught a larger fish, so I
wanted to throw back the first one." Long Yang then recounted the
privileges he enjoyed by being a person in royal favor, receiving deference
where ever he went. He added, "But within the four seas there are so many
beauties. When they hear that I have received your favor, surely they will lift
the hems of their robes so that they can hasten to you. Then I will be like the
first fish and will be thrown back! How can I not weep?"
According to the records, at that point the king, moved by Long Yang’s sad
thoughts, issued an order forbidding others from mentioning beauties and
comparing their charms in his presence.
This incident shows us that there was intense competition among young people
within the court to be chosen by the king as his sexual partner. It also shows
that the role of sexual favorite was precarious and could change overnight.
Throughout Chinese history the ruler’s sexual partners often did change
rapidly, so that the prestige enjoyed by a female (a concubine) or a male (a
courtier) with the ruler could be of very short duration. It is equally true,
though, that in some of the recorded cases the ruler developed a life-long
attachment to one of his partners and continued to reward them throughout their
lives. A number of China’s most powerful emperors, such as the very masculine
Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty (Han Wudi, r. 140-87 BCE) and the refined Qianlong
Emperor of the Qing dynasty (r. 1736-1795 CE) had male favorites (sometimes more
than one) with whom they formed lifelong relationships.
Many of the kings and emperors in China liked to relax from affairs of state
by spending time with their boy companions on boats drifting about a scenic
lake. Poets have often tried to capture these moments of tender love and quiet
conversation between the powerful but thoughtful ruler and his tender, younger
lover. The imagery of quietly drifting in a small boat while carrying out a
seduction became so common in China that even today many Chinese gays refer to
cruising as “going fishing� (diao yu).
Long Yang’s fame as a symbol of boyish sexual charms was celebrated several
hundred years later by the gay poet Ruan Ji (210-263 CE). Ruan Ji’s longtime
intimate friendship with the poet Ji Kang (223-262 CE) has long been
acknowledged in Chinese literary circles. Ruan was some thirteen years younger
than his lover and he wrote often of longing to be with Ji Kang. Although they
were separated for extended periods of time, the bond between them was strong
and the saddened Ruan Ji died just a few months after his beloved Ji Kang.
Ruan Ji wrote a poem that celebrated the erotic joys of love given by youths
to their older companions. He praised Long Yang in the poem, as well as An Ling,
a youth in the kingdom of Qu (488-223 BCE) who lived about a hundred years
before Long Yang. An Ling become so cherished by the king he slept with, King
Xuan (r. 369-340 BCE) that he was given his own fiefdom to rule. Both youths
came to symbolize male-male sexual relationships which in traditional China were
often conceived as being between an older and a younger male.
Ruan Ji’s poem reads:
In olden days were many handsome youths like
An Ling and Long Yang.
Young peach and plum blossoms,
Dazzling and radiant.
They were as joyful as nine spring times
And lithe as branches bent under the autumn frost.
Roving glances led to beautiful seductions,
Speech and laughter were filled with fragrance.
Partners clasping each other would welcome love
Together under the covers and blankets.
They were as two birds in flight,
Their paired wings soaring,
Using cinnabar ink they’d write their vows,
"I’ll never forget you."
from the Yutai xinyong (New Songs from the Jade Terrace).
Among the common people in pre-modern China, a reference to Long Yang was one
of the ways of indicating a person who appeared to be gay (one who appeared to
be interested in an emotional or sexual relationship with another male). Today
the name of this classical hero is used by the Long Yang Clubs worldwide, where
gay Asian men and their friends are invited to socialize in an atmosphere of
respect and mutual admiration. The international headquarters of the Long Yang
Club organization is in London, and branches exist in Europe and Asia as well as
in many cities in North America. The Club was founded in 1983 and today boasts
branches in at least eleven countries and five continents. The Clubs continue a
tradition as old as China itself. A tradition that is in truth as old as human
history.
Credit: Ronald
Suleski, Long Yang Club of Boston
and also
Published by
OutFront Colorado, August 24, 2009. Reprinted with permission from OutFront.
