Elsewhere in today’s Observer, Victoria Coren dreams of combining the UK’s Department of Education’s latest whizzo schemes. Apparently one scheme is that primary schools should teach compulsory languages, including Mandarin; while another is to introduce children’s books with gay themes into the primary schools. You can, of course, guess which of the two the usual suspects (i.e. the Daily Mail tabloid and fundamentalist "family" groups) have been fulminating about the most.
But real life has already got there ahead of Victoria. For centuries in China, the terms "half-bitten peach" and the "cut-sleeve" have been metaphors for homosexual intimacy. The first dates from the Zhou period. Let Adrian Carton, in an excellent chapter in the equally excellent Gay Life and Culture – a World History, take up the story:
The politics of personal favouritism are explored through the infatuation of Wei, Duke Ling (534 – 493 BCE), for the court official Mizi Xia. At the imperial court, making use of the ruler’s carriage for personal errands was deemed a serious offence, attracting the penalty of foot amputation. When his mother fell ill, Mizi Xia used the carriage in order to visit her; instead of punishing him, the duke praised his protégé’s filial duty and respect. Another scene depicts Mizi Xia and the duke walking through an orchard; the favoured official gives the ruler a half-eaten peach to eat, inspiring the duke to contemplate Mizi’s sense of devotion and self-sacrifice. Such was the influence of this fable that the name ‘Mizi Xia’ and the metaphor of the ‘love of the shared peach’ (fen tao zhi ai) evoked the phenomenon of homosexual intimacy for generations to come.
And for the second example, from the time of the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE):
Ban Gu supplies perhaps the most famous example of male intimacy which became a synonym for homosexual desire in China. The tale of Emperor Ai and his favourite, Dong Xian, speaks of an affectionate tenderness that seems universal. The couple were sleeping, with Dong Xian stretched out across the sleeve of the emperor. Not wanting to disturb his companion, the ruler cut off the sleeve of his own robe so that he could rise and resume his duties. The metaphor of the ‘cut sleeve’ (duan xiu) thus became a recognized euphemism for homosexuality, it reflected the extent to which homosexual intimacy had permeated the culture of upper-class Chinese life, but it also conveyed enduring noble qualities of loyalty, respect and filial attachment intrinsic to the Confucian moral univers.
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