Last weekend, I received five emails in a day regarding the boycott of City Without Baseball, from students as well as the media, everyone of them asking: Do you agree with boycotting?

On May 31, director Scud brought two of his actors, Leung Yu Chung and Ron Heong to have an interview on Radio and Television Hong Kong's We Are Family, a radio programme targeting a mainly gay and lesbian audience. When asked a string of questions by the radio host Brian Leung about his views on homosexuality, actor Chung gave replies which included: not being "averse to acting in a film with homosexual content, because this kind of people do exist in our society," but in real life, he does not wish to have gays participating in his real life baseball team, because he "does not know what homosexuals are really thinking," and he is afraid of being "touched/harassed" by them. Responding to a question posed by the host, he said that should a gay man expresses his interest to him, he will use foul language to scold him or beat him up, because he believes homosexuality is "abnormal."

In the interview, radio host Brian Leung expressed concern over Chung's "homophobic" opinions, and Chung himself admitted, "I did not say that I am not (homophobic)", "I don't know that many people", and "you can call my thinking conservative!"

At the end of the interview session, Brian was critical about the fact that despite being involved in a film with gay content, the interviewees have very shallow understanding of gay culture, demonstrating a lack of effort in their background research, and so in his opinion, have not displayed the professionalism expected of an actor. Brian also advised young athletes to note that while they are engaged in a macho profession, they should not resort to violence so very readily.

It is doubtlessly discomfiting for anyone to be labeled "abnormal," or to be accused of being unprofessional. As a public forum for debate, We Are Family provided a platform for opinions from both sides to be adequately articulated and discussed within a limited time, so while it may make some people uneasy, such discomfort is precisely the essence of a civil society. The issue was placed unambiguously on the table, with the homophobic guest and gay radio host opening their hearts to discuss it, amicably taking steps to enable honest communication and attempting to mutually understand each other's feelings and thoughts. Other media platforms in Hong Kong, such as the radio, television, Internet channels and print media, should grab the opportunity to take it from there in creating more avenues to expand and deepen mutual understanding among different communities.

It was, however, unfortunate that the events took an abrupt turn when shortly after, (film director) Scud's film studio was reported to be vandalised - the main glass door smashed. In media reports about this incident, Scud claimed to suspect that it was related to the homophobic comments made by his actor, though apparently there has not been any evidence to support such claims. At the same time, netizens started a Facebook campaign to "Boycott City Without Baseball," and equated Chung's "hate speech" with "hate crimes," highlighting the case of the 15-year-old Californian student Lawrence King, who was killed by gunshot after expressing his attraction for a (male) classmate, and called for a concerted effort to end all homophobic crimes, in order "to create a better world for embracing diversity." The campaign also accused City Without Baseball of being a "pseudo-gay movie," which makes use of male nudity to titillate and entice gay viewers and "maybe fujoshi audience" obsessed with peeping into gay people's lives (resulting in the popular boys' love genre), and that such a movie does not help "in the advancement of (sexual) equality in the world."

(Fujoshi is Japanese term which refers to a female fan of manga and novels that feature romantic relationships between men.)

I am not so sure whether the discourse of "pseudo-gay movie" stands, as I wonder myself whether there could be any gay movies in the world that would ever measure up to the label of being "authentically gay". In fact, just imagining various possible criteria which might be used to ascertain whether a film is "authentic" or "pseudo" (gay or straight) would give me creeps. What I am more certain, is that in advocating diversity, one needs to start with accommodating and understanding people's opinions and feelings different from one's own. In Hong Kong, we know very well that there is very little behavioural freedom in public space (even sitting down by the street to rest after a tiring walk would attract questioning from the police), while on the other hand we seem to think that we enjoy a considerable amount of freedom of speech, so our understanding of what we can and cannot say and the effect of our speech has never been equivalent to that of what we can and cannot do and the effect of our action. For instance, would not telling you that "I have a strong desire to rob you of your bag so don't you ever shove it in my face again - you bitch," and actually snatching it from you be quite different? Should both acts be considered criminal?

Chung has done nothing more than making a few statements, so what "hate crimes" has he committed? He has been so willing, amidst all the stress of appearing, speaking up and contradicting the host in a gay program no less, to tell us his true feelings, which without a doubt reveal a lot of misconceptions, fears and anxiety tied to homosexual and homoerotic tendencies often felt by straight-identified young men growing up in a widely homophobic environment such as Hong Kong. If such emotions are suppressed indefinitely, what will become of them? To advocate suppressing differences in order to achieve an apparent state of harmony is a very easy approach to take, but history has never shown us a success story of attaining civil equality through silencing speech. The Americans have in recent years upped the ante on many kinds of hate speech, resulting in racial discriminatory and homophobic emotions which have not been dissipated but yet could find no vent for outpour, being driven progressively underground, and that may explain the recurrence of many campus tragedies, including but not limited to the aforementioned. Many studies have shown that hate speech in itself does not easily lead to hate crime, but conversely, hate speech that has not been given adequate relief and debate will just increase the likelihood and intensity of actual occurrence of hate crimes. If the campaign to boycott City Without Baseball really succeeds in wiping out homophobic speech from Hong Kong society, but then, what do you think will happen at the end of the day?

This column was originally written in Chinese to be published in the July issue of HKinema.

YAU Ching is an author, filmmaker and Associate Professor in Cultural Studies at Hong Kong Lingnan University. She is best known for Ho Yuk (Let's Love Hong Kong), Hong Kong's first lesbian feature film. An anthology on sexualities in China and Hong Kong is forthcoming from Hong Kong University Press. She has been involved with the Hong Kong Tongzhi movement since the early 1990s, is a founding member of the LBGTIQ group Nutong Xueshe, and is currently on the Executive Board of Midnight Blue, a male sex workers' network in Southern China.