Gay Chinese

March 1997

Cultural revolution

Despite intense societal pressure to marry, gay Chinese are slowly coming out
by Philip Gambone

"You're not FBI, are you?" Shilu asked me.
We were talking in a cozy gay bar on the east end of Beijing. Although we'd known each other for several weeks, Shilu, a doctor, was still suspicious when I asked if I could tape an interview about gay life in the capital of the People's Republic. When I assured my friend I was not FBI, he laughed and apologized.
"In China always some bad news happen and some good news," he said.
Shilu (all names in this article are fictitious) was one of more than 30 gay men I talked to during the three months this fall when I lived and worked in Beijing. After years of repression, official and otherwise, a fledgling gay culture is quietly emerging there -- a gay bar here, a gay-friendly disco there, a gay hotline.
The men I met came from all walks of life: doctors, accountants, factory workers, a filmmaker, a waiter, a designer, a dancer, a cosmetologist, a government liaison officer, and several graduate students. Most of them I met at the gay bar -- at that time, Beijing's only gay bar -- or in a public park known as a cruising area. (In my three and a half months in China I met only two lesbians -- one British, one Chinese.) To my surprise, most were quite eager to talk about their lives and their hopes for the future. One topic on everyone's mind was relationships -- where and how to find a boyfriend, and what to do about it after you did.

Much of Chinese society is organized around same-sex living arrangements that make homosexual activity, if not relationships, fairly available. Young, unmarried men are assigned to live in all-male work unit dormitories where, I was repeatedly told, sleeping together is not uncommon.
"One night I was really lonely," one young man told me. "Really upset. And I went to another guy's bed -- just for comfort. He held me. No problem. I was 20. He was like my big brother. We didn't have sex. But we did do some touching and cuddling."
Another man told me that when he works late at his office he often goes to stay with a friend who lives in a nearby dormitory. "I can sleep with him. No problem. No one would ask us, `Why are you sleeping together?' "
And another man, Baogu, a graduate student, described fellow students at his university who have girlfriends but talk about homosexuality and collect pictures of handsome movie stars. "They want to keep their appetite for gay sex," he told me.
But what happens when this "appetite" can no longer be sublimated?
"Most gays can't lead a normal life," Baogu said despondently. "They have to resort to public toilets."
Indeed, many gay men I talked to in Beijing could suggest only the parks and their public toilets as places to meet other gay men. Every Chinese city, I was informed, has a park that functions as a homosexual meeting place. Dong Dan Park, in central Beijing, is one of the most notorious. Most Beijingers know it as a gay cruising area. Besides being frequented by gay men looking for sex and/or companionship, Dong Dan is also the stomping ground of many of Beijing's "money boys," young guys who want to be paid for sex. Most of them, one gay man claimed, are young workers from northeast China (a region known for its "strong, handsome" men, he added) who have come to the capital because the economic situation in their area is so bad.
Although I visited Dong Dan once (and was immediately set upon by several of these Sino-hustlers), it was in a smaller, less notorious park just north of the Second Ring Road that I met several of the gay men I would subsequently befriend and interview.
I was told by a few gay men that after 10 p.m. "bad men" came to the park. I'm not sure what kind of activities these "bad men" engaged in, though I heard occasional rumors of stolen wallets and even beatings. I was also told that the police sometimes make raids on the park and apprehend gay men.
"Have the police ever bothered you?" I asked Ding, a 26-year-old businessman.
He replied that one night he was accosted by five policemen. When he protested that he wasn't doing anything and that he'd just come to the park to "enjoy himself and relax," they gave him a choice: either pay them money or be taken to jail. They wanted 1200 yuan. That's about $150, a substantial sum by Chinese standards. Ding told me that he had no choice but to pay.
Some men I spoke with said that they rarely had sex with guys they met at the park. Shame and lack of privacy played a part in this, but it also seems that they simply wanted to talk to other gay men even more than they wanted sex. One man said that when he was younger he never exchanged names or phone numbers with guys he met. Otherwise, he said, "problems" might arise. What kind of problems? I asked. Police? No, he said, it was more the risk that word of his being gay would spread to friends and colleagues. He had to be careful that no one would find out.
Word of mouth seems to be the most common way for gay Chinese to learn about the cruising parks.
One man said that when he was a student, a university professor warned him about a notorious WC, since closed, in Tiananmen Square. Of course, he said, he went there "immediately."
"People help each other," another man said. "You meet someone, they tell you where to go. In my hometown, if you go to the public toilets you will find [graffiti] that says, `You don't have to feel ashamed to be gay. You should feel comfortable. It's okay.' "
"Who would write that?" I asked him.
"Two types: straight people who do it just for fun; the second type, maybe they are doing it purposely to make it into a beat."
"A beat?" I asked.
He laughed. "It's an Australian term. A gay cruising area. My boyfriend taught it to me."

But figuring out where to meet other gay men is only part of the problem. By age 25 or so, most Chinese men, gay and straight, feel tremendous "pressure" -- a word I heard frequently -- to marry.
"We have a long history of the cultural value of marriage," Baogu explained. He said that his parents have pinned all their hopes on him and that they would be "heartbroken" if Baogu told them he was gay or, more to the point, would not get married and produce a grandchild. His parents, Baogu added, are both academics who grew up during the Cultural Revolution and had to struggle horribly just to survive.
"They have been so wronged and hurt by the government," he said. "Some Westerners who encourage Chinese gays to come out, they just don't understand the situation. My parents led such a miserable life. From the time they were young, they did not have enough food, they were not in good health. I just worry that they could not take my telling them I'm gay. The problem is not that we lack the courage." He paused. "I just can't. It would humiliate them and my ancestors."
Indeed, most gay men I met thought it would be impossible (one called it "mad") to come out, even to friends and fellow workers. Some, I was told, try to compromise by deliberately marrying a woman who is homely or of a lower educational or social rank in order to have an "excuse" not to be intimate with her.
But many gay Chinese don't discover, or fully understand, their sexuality until well after they've married. Mr. Wang, a man I met at a dinner with some Chinese gay activists, is a case in point. Now in his early 50s, Wang had never even heard the word "homosexuality" when he married at the age of 30.
"If I knew about such things earlier," he told me, "I would not have chosen to get married."
At the same time, Wang has never hidden his involvement with Beijing's gay hotline from his wife or his family. He told me that by doing "good work," he feels he can win over other people's respect.
Not all married gay men are quite so sanguine. Dayue, a physician, is married with a two-year-old son; he and his wife come from a small city in the south. Dayue knew little about homosexuality, and was only vaguely aware of his own gayness, when he married three years ago at age 27. Only in recent months, since coming to Beijing to begin an advanced medical degree, has he confronted his true sexual identity.
He said he's "miserable" and feels torn, as if he's "living in two worlds." He once tried to tell his wife that he was homosexual and she laughed, thinking he was joking. But now, Dayue is hoping to get a divorce. Because of his graduate studies, he lives a 24-hour train trip away from home. He's also stopped calling his wife because he wants to send a clear message to her that there is no longer any emotional connection between them.
Even for gay men who do manage to find a lover, the possibility of their actually living together is extremely remote. Most people in China do not enjoy the kind of privacy that Westerners take for granted. I was told by several Chinese fluent in English that there really isn't even a word for "privacy" in Chinese. Needless to say, the lack of privacy for gay men brings even more hardship.
"They could live together," one man told me, "if they knew how to protect themselves. They would have to have careers, jobs -- not working for the state." The man knew of only one gay couple who do live together. They have the kinds of jobs (one works for a joint venture) that allow them to afford a private apartment, a great luxury in Beijing.
But despite the limited opportunities for gay men to establish relationships, many men I spoke with expressed a deep longing to find a lover and settle down. One gay man, who works for Beijing television, said, "I want to find someone whom I love and who loves me and, if possible, to have a life together that is more than just sex. To have feelings exchange."
Since I left China, another gay bar has opened up down the street from the first, and plans are underway for the first of what organizers hope will be an annual conference on lesbian and gay studies. What will happen to China's emerging gay community now that a new leadership takes hold is anyone's guess. But while gay Beijingers are still a long way from the day when they can "announce" their lives as proudly as their gay and lesbian counterparts in the West, it's certain that despite all efforts to suppress, ignore, or dismiss them, gay feelings and gay love will continue to find a way.

Philip Gambone is the author of The Language We Use Up Here, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. He teaches writing at Harvard Extension School.

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