The following is an extract of “Year of Gay China” from China Daily. Click on the link below to read the article in full.
As the year 2009 comes to a close, it does so having been a monumental year for China's LGBT community. Beijing and numerous cities across China experienced the successful completion of 12 anniversaries and public events that expose LGBT culture and related issues like never before.
China's LGBT community, which is an acronym that refers to lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people, has adapted the terms tongzhi to refer to gays, lala for lesbians, ku'er for queer - an umbrella term for those who do not identify as heterosexual with regard to sexuality, sexual anatomy or gender identity.
The community is young. Most are in their 20s and 30s, are educated, working professionals with experience abroad who are now highly active and public organizers, authors, editors, designers, film directors, curators, activists and artists.
One catalyst was the Olympic Games in 2008, a landmark event that many in the LGBT community have interpreted as a "coming out" event. LGBT websites have allowed for communities to build, to advertise events, and to allow contact and information to be exchanged between LGBT members from big cities and small towns in China with those from around the world.
As one of the organizers of China's first gay pride events and editor for shanghaiist.com, Kenneth Tan, puts it: "Gay people, young and old, are now coming out en masse. These people are all what I call 'first generation queers'."
Policies, too, have been slowly changing. At a national level, 1997 saw the removal of sodomy from the country's list of crimes; homosexuality was removed from the list of mental disorders in 2001; and since 2003 prominent sexologist and activist, Li Yinhe, has been proposing same-sex marriage legislation at the annual Two Sessions.
In China, where LGBT-themed films are prohibited and gay-themed exhibitions, novels and magazines are taboo, the success of many of these events have been years in the making. Organizers have gotten creative: they arrange other activities; they hold their film festivals and art exhibitions just outside major cities; they keep publicity to a minimum.
So with all this happening, what does the future hold for China's LGBT community? Li Yinhe has revealed plans to propose another same-sex marriage bill in 2010. And in a nation without ratings, perhaps introducing them to TV shows and films, will help lift the ban on gay and lesbian characters on screen. Perhaps China will witness the coming-out of its first celebrity.
Yet among all involved to promote awareness and to end discrimination, there seems to be a consensus: they have come a long way, but there is still a long way to go.
Organisers and participants at Shanghai Pride as featured in China Daily
列印版本
RSS Feed: 
讀者回應
Couple of points;
-Sodomy has never been listed as a crime in China. 1997 saw the removal of "hooliganism" from the criminal code. A defacto crime that police used to arrest gay people for, not sodomy.
-LGBT-themed films are not "prohibited" in China. Just public screening of them is.
Developments in China are crucial to the rest of the world because this country will become the most important superpower in the world, where most of the economic growth in the coming decade will come from, and the only country capable of bailing out the United States when Obama can't. China will continue to become a significant source of immigrants to Singapore, so the developments in China will influence how the host Singapore government will shape Singapore in order to become attractive to Chinese immigrants and investors.
If the 2500 signatures from Singaporeans couldn't persuade the Singapore government to repeal 377a, perhaps strong demand from gay Chinese immigrants could. We had seen how conservative Singapore finally legalised casinos after realising strong demand from mainlanders to gamble offshore. If we don't take their business, Macau and Malaysia would. Consequently, even conservative Singapore had gone ahead with developing the gambling industry. Even after the so-called 'conservative majority' had voiced strong opposition and even petitioned to the President! As such, the Singapore LGBT community must never forget the China factor!
What we could learn from the Casino chapter in our history is that Singapore as a pragmatic society that is open to the world cannot stand in isolation from the major geopolitical shifts. Beside continuing to promote awareness and participation about LGBT issues, we could also promote Singapore to more skilled China gay immigrants. Singapore need more immigrants to expand our economy. These immigrants will ultimately become Singapore PRs or Citizens with all the legal rights to participate in our call for more liberalisation.
A leap of light years has occurred, with the govt. providing funding to open a gay bar. Picture this: Spring Festival 2006 in Nanjing where the local govt. had closed down HOMO BAR and its website, with huge RED WARNING signs in the courtyard of the building and armed guards stationed in the lobby warning people to stay away or face arrest!
Picture this: earlier this very year, the gay sauna in Hangzhou -right around the corner from JUNDU CLUB- raided by police on a Sunday afternoon for organizing an English corner - later my friends told me it was orchestrated by owners of a rival sauna who PAID POLICE to make the raid.
So, like I say, this is a very positive step forward as the govt. realizes the OLD WAYS of dealing with gay people are simply NOT gonna work - especially as China tries to assume a greater presence on the WORLD STAGE.
nevertheless, i am very saddened about the execution of the British Indian man. yes, it's a crime. but, there was doubts about his mental health, and he was not given any access to medical care or psychiatrist assessment. one life that is precious to his loved ones is gone.
let's just wait and see what happens for our community. my point is China is very much conservative still.
"Rescuing the queer past from oblivion is particularly meaningful in contemporary China, where a commercialized gay culture is emerging in major urban areas along with a discourse on the issue of homosexuality, which appears to have developed in complete unawareness of the history of the first half of the twentieth century. The public discourse, on the one hand, talks about the need to understand and accept gay people, and on the other hand, continues to stigmatize and police them. The commercialized gay establishments, while providing a semi-open outlet for young men in China to explore their sexual identities and desires, in fact, have replaced many urban public spaces where men used to meet clandestinely. Local police forces keep surveillance on or close down self-created queer spaces, from affordable bathouses to queer cultural festivals, but keep hands off of the Western or Hong Kong/Taiwan-funded commercial establishments such as over-priced Western-style bars and clubs. Even though the Chinese Psychiatric Association eliminated homosexuality from the list of mental disorders in 2001, advice from experts on how to prevent homosexuality from happening at an early stage still fills newspaper and internet discussions. News reports on homosexuality are fraught with stories of robberies, blackmail, male prostitution, and crimes of passion."
-page 147.
Obviously, China does have a long way to go, which is even more reason to applaud an article such as this appearing in China Daily, BUT, as Wenqing Kang continues, there are a few caveats to this double-edged sword as well:
"A salient feature of this contemporary discourse on homosexuality is that it UNCRITICALLY embraces late capitalist globalization, portraying it as a POSITIVE FORCE that, for the first time, brings new liberating ideas, such as gay identity, to Chinese men with same-sex desire; and at the same time dissociates homosexual-related social problems from the growing economic stratification caused by the government embrace of global capitalism. The Western media also report on the positive side of the development as a sign that China is marching toward democracy and modernity as the communist state is implementing a neoliberal policy. The PROLBEM with this kind of discourse is that it tends to glorify and naturalize the global capitalism and see neoliberalism as the ONLY option for the contemporary world."
-page 148.
In other words, those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them.
"Rescuing the queer past from oblivion is particularly meaningful in contemporary China, where a commercialized gay culture is emerging in major urban areas along with a discourse on the issue of homosexuality, which appears to have developed in complete unawareness of the history of the first half of the twentieth century. The public discourse, on the one hand, talks about the need to understand and accept gay people, and on the other hand, continues to stigmatize and police them. the commercialized gay establishments, while providing a semi-open outlet for young men in China to explore their sexual identities and desires, in fact, have replaced many urban PUBLIC spaces where men used to meet clandestinely. Local police forces keep surveillance on or close down self-created queer spaces, from affordable bathouses to queer cultural festivals, but keep hands off of the Western or Hong Kong/Taiwan-funded commercial establishments such as overpriced Western-style bars and clubs. Even though the Chinese Psychiatric Association eliminated homosexuality from the list of mental disorders in 2001, advice from experts on how to prevent homosexuality from happening at an early stage still fills newspaper and internet discussions. News reports on homosexuality are fraught with stories of robberies, blackmail, male prostitution, and crimes of passion." (page 147)
KANG goes on to explain that even seemingly "enlightened" reporting -such as this China Daily full page article suggests-
is also somewhat of a double-edged sword:
"A salient feature of this contemporary discourse on homosexuality is that it UNCRITICALLY embraces late capitalist globalization, portraying it as a positive force that, for the first time, brings new liberating ideas, such as gay identity, to Chinese men with same-sex desire; and at the same time dissociates homosexual-related social problems from the growing economic stratification caused by the government embrace of global capitalism. The Western media also report on the positive side of the development as a sign that China is marching toward democracy and modernity as the communist state is implementing a neoliberal policy. The PROBLEM with this kind of discourse is that it tends to glorify and naturalize the global capitalism and see neoliberalism as the ONLY option for the contemporary world. (page 148)
In other words, as the oft-quoted George Santayana once remarked:
"THOSE WHO DO NOT LEARN FROM THE MISTAKES OF THE PAST ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT THEM." or something like that....
(sorry for the extra-long post, but I do so for mainland readers who probably do not have access to this book - and we all know WHY they can't!)
China Daily, founded on June 1, 1981, is the national English-language newspaper and is targeted at Western mainstream society.
China Daily’s reports are the most frequently quoted by foreign media and it acts as an important window to “China understanding the world and be understood by the world”.
Flagship newspaper: China Daily
China Daily is the national English-language newspaper and is one of the most authoritative newspapers in the country. It serves as a key reference point for overseas media and society. The newspaper has an average daily circulation of more than 300,000 in 150 countries and regions. Two-thirds of China Daily’s readers are government officials, think tanks and decision-makers as well as top executives from multinational corporations.
Exactly! It's because of papers like China Daily with their shoddy fact checking and journalism that Western Media often gets it so wrong when reporting about China.
Though cultural and political bias plays a role. The Chinese can't always use these as an excuse for when the BBC, CNN and Reuters misinterpret what's going on in China. They need to look at where the West are getting their information from inside China and make sure that it is accurate. As the National English Language Newspaper of China Western Media is going to view it as a viable and reliable source of information.
I remember one time when I picked up an issue and there was a serious report about some breakthrough in Alzheimer's research. To "jazz" up the page an X-Ray scan of the brain was added as a picture. Seems appopriate enough, but a closer look and you'd notice that it was infact an X-Ray of Homer Simpson's brain being the size of a peanut!!
A journalist friend of mine called up to get a comment about the "error" a week after the release. When he spoke to one of the eidtors, he hadn't even realised the error yet and thought it was "funny" when he was informed about it.
Does this sound like a newspaper that should be taken seriously?
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-01/14/content_6390950.htm
For excerpt translated in Chinese:
http://www.aibai.com/info/open.php?id=17690
The Chinese version of Fridae news reported that the first Mr Gay China pageant will be held January 15, 2010, and registration is closing 31 Dec 2009. The successful candidate will then represent the most populous country in the world at the Mr Gay World contest in Oslo in February. This is really something! The world is waiting. Go, China!
haven't watch china daily for a long time , i will buy one next week.
China’s Landmark Decision on Homosexuality
Greenwich Village Gazette, October 15, 1999
New York, NY
Email: editor@new1.com
By Jack Nichols
Attention gay businessmen of all nations! Beware of now-legal mainland Chinese traps.
In what the South China Morning Post (October 13) has called "a landmark decision," Zhang Lihua, a thirty-something female judge of the Xuanwu District Court, has decided that homosexuality is abnormal and thus characterized same-sex love as unacceptable behavior among China’s citizens.
"It is the first time a mainland court has ruled on the nature of homosexuality," writes Mark O’Neill, a Beijing-based reporter. Prior to this ruling, he explains, anti-gay prejudices, while existing, have never before been ensconced as legally permissible.
In a cruel reversal of pending Hate Crime legislation in the United States Congress, therefore, the Chinese Court has institutionalized anti-gay sentiments, placing the full authority of Chinese courts against same-sex love and affection. The Court’s target is the author of a book which, by its very title, could be considered by party conservatives as damaging to the reputation of the nation.
Fang Gang, 31, author of Homosexuals in China (released April, 1995) and his publisher, Jilin Peoples Publishing House were defendants in this "literary-slander of-the-unnamed" case.
The author said: "I feel the judgment is unfair. It is for doctors, not judges, to say if homosexuality is abnormal."
The suit’s initiator, who was an un-named character in Homosexuals in China, but who is now identified as Mr. Xu, sued Fang Gang and his publisher for 60,000 yuan (HK$55,000) charging he’d suffered Chinese-style anti-gay prejudice, a consequence of the "slanderous’ book in which he was not named.
Homosexuals in China, since publication, has sold 70,000 copies in this populous nation. Mr. Xu (un-named in the book) is described in its pages as the manager of a dance hall in which a gay Valentines Day party is held with approximately 50 persons attending. The book indicates that the dance hall manager is a homosexual and explains that he’d also volunteered as a gay telephone hotline operator.
Mr. Xu’s presentation to the court blamed the book for making him subject to what he called suspicion and criticism by acquaintances and family members. His fiancé spurned him, he lamented, and he, although unnamed, has now reportedly found himself an outcast in society.
What’s more, the former unnamed dance hall operator has not since publication, he alleged, been able to find a job.
Judge Zhang Lihua found in favor of Mr. Xu, awarding him 9,000 yuan damages, 7,000 to be paid by the book’s author and 2,000 by his publishing house. The award was to compensate Mr. Xu following his having been alluded to in Homosexuals in China, for those undoubted psychological damages and job losses he claimed he’d endured.
China watchers scoffed at this latest attempt by established authorities to regulate private behavior.
Some fear that Chinese officialdom is, through this decision, making a concerted attempt to quash the growth of gay grapevines in China over which they can have no Big Brother style-jurisdiction.
Communist Party stalwarts, they note, want underlings on hand to be seen and heard at all times. Currently the government is persecuting the mostly invisible members of an outlawed exercise-prone religious revival, although it is popular, peaceful, quiet and non-political.
People everywhere, says critic Steve Yates, must never forget the official Chinese government’s reaction to China’s peaceful democratic counterculture movement of 1989. While citizens of other lands helplessly watched on TV, the Chinese government consciously marched on and mowed-down thousands of its own idealistic, non-violent 60s style youth. "It was Kent State very much magnified and as much or more cold blooded," notes Yates, referring to 1970 Ohio campus shootings by U.S. military guards and their killings of several unarmed college students.
"The court’s decision, so blatantly sympathetic to the plight of Mr. Xu could signal the state’s resolve to set the stage in McCarthyite fashion to persecute and prosecute accused homosexuals at will," cautioned Yates.
The court decision says:
"Homosexuality in China today is considered as abnormal sexual behavior and is not acceptable to the public."
"Therefore, by describing the plaintiff as a homosexual without any proof, Fang Gang brought depression and psychological pain to him [Mr Xu] and affected his life and work, infringing his reputation."
This Xuanwu District Court verdict was delivered September 30. Fang, whose lawyer remains supportive, has suggested that he’s given thought to an appeal of the judge’s decision before the weekend.
Jack Nichols is Senior Editor at GayToday, a popular online newsmagazine: www.gaytoday.badpuppy.com.
[Home] [World] [China]
請先登入再使用此功能。