Gay China
I recently read this article about gay life in Beijing, and watched the video above, about gay life in Shanghai. These two cities are the only places in mainland China with a semblance of gay culture. Sodomy was decriminalized in 1997, and the new Chinese Classification and Diagnostic Criteria of Mental Disorders removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses in 2001.
Wikipedia states that:
"An Internet survey in 2000 showed that Chinese people are becoming more tolerant towards homosexuality: among the 10,792 surveyed, 48.15% were in favor, 30.9% disapproved, 14.46% were uncertain, and 7.26% were indifferent. However, there are no laws protecting gays from discrimination, nor are there any gay rights organizations in China."
Two things struck me about the video above: The comments could have easily been spoken by people in Virginia, and it's interesting that their gay culture is still in its infancy, yet they quickly figured out the whole shirts-off/oonch-oonch thing.
1 comment:
Even though I could not visit China, my travels in Southeast Asia were very similar to this videographer's findings. Openly gay establishments exist only in the largest cities and those that are open to globalization, particularly in those mimicking the Western development model. The videographer nailed the source of much Asian gay culture when he identified the relationship between ex-pats and gay bars. Traditional societies don't value gay expression if it is related to sexual gratification, but some (like Vietnam) are comfortable with man-on-man or woman-on-woman public affection, such as holding hands or cuddling on a park bench. At the gay bars I visited, ex-pats always made a substantial portion of the crowd and usually looked most comfortable. Globalization brought the ex-pats and they both brought and demanded the physical manifestation of gay culture, which, I believe, locals seized upon as an example and a means of expression that their society traditionally rejects. That's probably why they have figured out the onch-unch thing already. Mostly because it was imported by ex-pats, but also because young Asians wants to join the global 'mainstream' (which is actually unfortunate). Electronica and night life are inseparable in the imported image of the West.
Hopefully as the gay communities in these countries mature in the public eye, the scenes will develop a more distinctly Asian flare, but the lack of pioneers and predecessors and the large numbers of ex-pats keep the scene in its awkward pubescent stage.
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