Best opening line ever 17, March 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in China.Tags: Best opening line, China Blog, Eunuch, Imperial Palace, Pickled genitals, Reuters, Time Magazine
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Time Magazine’s China Blog quotes what has to be the most gripping and intriguing opening line for a story. It is taken from Emma Graham-Harrison’s article for Reuters and is really rather remarkable.
Only two memories brought tears to Sun Yaoting’s eyes in old age — the day his father cut off his genitals, and the day his family threw away the pickled remains that should have made him a whole man again at death.
What to read on? Of course you do…
(Poor guy; he had his bits whipped off by his father with no anaesthetic, was unconscious for three days, could hardly move for months, finally ‘recovered’ sufficiently and was about to go to the palace to take on a Eunuch-type role when he discovered that the Emperor had just abdicated….how annoying.)
The Gulf blog 