What does a prostitute mean?

Male prostitute is a local traditional handicraft in Beijing, which belongs to children's toys that should be in season during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Every Mid-Autumn Festival, Beijingers worship "male prostitutes". This custom originated in the Ming Dynasty. After the "male prostitute" turned into a children's Mid-Autumn Festival toy. Some people portray a "male prostitute" as a warrior wearing a golden helmet and shining armor, some riding lions and elephants, some carrying paper flags or umbrellas on their backs, or sitting or standing, which is pleasing to the eye.

According to the statement that there is a Jade Rabbit of Chang 'e in the Moon Palace, the Jade Rabbit is further artistically personified and even deified, and made into various forms of male prostitutes with mud. Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Moon Palace Jade Rabbit gradually broke away from the attachment of the moon worship, and formed an independent image in the ceremony of offering sacrifices to the moon, and gradually enriched it. Male prostitutes have both sacred and secular characteristics, and they have both sacrificial and recreational functions. Nowadays, male prostitutes have become one of the most representative intangible cultural heritages in Beijing.

Ethnicity

Male prostitutes appeared in the Ming Dynasty. Ming Jikun (about 1636) recorded in the manuscript of the Examination Hall: "The Mid-Autumn Festival in Beijing is mostly in the shape of a mud rabbit, dressed like a human figure, and children worship it." This is the earliest record of male prostitutes. Maybe the prostitute is made of clay according to the image of the jade rabbit on the moonlight paper.

Folk sacrifices to rabbits highlight the nature of sightseeing. The people call Jade Rabbit a prostitute, which is not as serious and solemn as "Taiyin Jun", but very kind, so royal etiquette has become a real folk festival. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, male prostitutes had become both sacrifices for the Mid-Autumn Festival and toys for children.