The Global Times (环球时报) is an international affairs newspaper published by the People’s Daily (人民日报), the official mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China, and it is usually about as entertaining as that sounds. Unlike the People’s Daily the Global Times is hugely popular in China, my students in Huaihua used to read it all the time (they used its fiercely nationalistic articles to help them craft their essays for school). Global Times is nationalistic and often goes after foreign governments, which can make it kind of grating to read as a foreigner. This year they started printing an English version of the newspaper as part of the Chinese government’s multi-billion dollar investment to make the Chinese viewpoint heard round the world (they also want to start a 24/7 English news channel). The English Global Times has enlisted a wide range of people to write articles and op-eds, including many English speaking expats living in China (even some bloggers), which means the paper has a far more diverse viewpoint than its Chinese mother.
I don’t usually read the paper, though recently the paper ran an op-ed with a headline that got my attention: “More Hope for Gay Rights in China Than in the US.” How could I resist that?
The author is James Palmer. He is a non-fiction writer who recently published his book The Bloody White Baron, a history of the Russian Baron Ungern-Sternberg (1886–1921). He lives in Beijing. Mr. Palmer makes some really great points in his editorial, but in the end his thesis is wrong. I thought I’d hash out the details here.
He starts by saying that with the recent civil rights losses in Maine (the passing of a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage) and Rhode Island (the governor forbade gay partners from enjoying funeral rights) have left civil rights leaders “despairing”. While I am certainly saddened by the developments in Maine and Rhode Island I am not despairing, and I don’t think other young LGBT Americans are either. There was the recent super-sized march in Washington for LGBT rights and the signing into law of the Shepard Byrd Hate Crimes Bill that in my mind seem to offer a lot of hope and promise for the people fighting for LGBT rights in America. Plus, the generational divide on the issue of gay marriage makes me very secure in the knowledge that there is no reason to despair, at least not too much. Of course, Mr. Palmer is right in many ways on this point. The recent murder, dismemberment and burning of 19 year old Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado in Puerto Rico shows that our society has many problems and that the fight for gay rights in America is not merely about marriage.
He then writes:
If anything, the situation in China can seem worse. Gay marriage isn’t even on the administrative agenda yet, and most Chinese homosexuals still live hidden lives, pressured into marriage by their family.
Yet history and culture may offer more hope in China than in the US.
Not a ridiculous proposition, and one that I have also considered here on my blog. The question is how far can you take this line of thinking? Will China have nationwide gay marriage rights before the U.S.? (Yes, that day will certainly come, both here and there.) Will China’s gay rights movement follow along a path similar to America’s? In the end I think the real question that makes such nation to nation comparisons fraught with difficulty is: What are the underlying differences between our culture’s views on homosexuality and how will these differences affect the fight for gay rights?
Mr. Palmer feels the same and he wrote a bit about homosexuality’s (especially male homosexuality) place in Chinese culture and history, something him and I both seem to have an interest in. He brings up the eminent Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), a man more fascinating and game-changing than Marco Polo ever was, who, in his quest to convert the Chinese masses, looked the other way when it came to ancestor worship but could never understand the Chinese people’s acceptance of homosexuality. He wrote of homosexuality: “It is spoken of in public and practised everywhere without there being anyone to prevent it.”
European societies, as Mr. Palmer points out, were cultures where homosexuality was, “condemned by religion, law and custom, and vicious punishments, even including death, were handed down to gay men.” In contrast, China had long viewed homosexuality not in such black and white terms. Many Chinese Emperors were bisexual (all but one in the Han dynasty), male concubines were allowed and often common among the wealthy, and male poets would write romantic lines about their same sex lovers. While ancient China was never a homosexual paradise, it was also not the judgmental nightmare than Christian Europe used to be.
It was only with the Self-Strengthening Movement, the fall of the Qing dynasty, and the adoption of Western political and cultural ideas that allowed Western ideas towards homosexuality to become the norm in China. Mr. Palmer points out that during Mao’s reign homosexuality was considered a “Western bourgeois vice,” a line of thinking that some still believe today. Go figure, the ancient country with a long history of open homosexuality calls homosexuality a Western trend. However, China’s history does not in and of itself easily translate into an easier fight for LGBT rights in today’s China.
Mr. Palmer mentions the interesting place of homosexuality in Chinese society today:
Today, gay rights in China are less advanced than in Europe or the US. Although a commonly accepted rule is “no approval, no disapproval, no promotion,”and legal persecution is rare, gays rarely live openly and have a difficult time, in particular, coming out to their parents. (Emphasis added)
Many gay men have male lovers in their 20s, get married and have a child – and then, very often, go back to having secretive same-sex relationships.
This is a pretty solid summary of the situation facing gay men in China today. Gay men are neither hunted nor welcomed. Gay bars are hard to find, exist as relatively secretive places and are not a place where you want to be seen by your straight boss. At the same time the bathrooms of gay bars and clubs are covered in government ads urging the use of safe sex and inside a Chinese gay bar everyone is very open and friendly. Hell, the government in Dali, a city in Yunnan province, just opened a gay bar in the city today as a way to stop the spread of AIDS and provide a community center for the gay community. Turns out the gay bar has been put on hold due to the intense media attention, the gay volunteers voted not to open it yet. If you ask me, this is sign of how the development of gay rights is going to be slow going in China.
Mr. Palmer is also right that most gay men in China still marry women and have children after their 20s. I talked about these “homowives” and the reasons behind such marriages in a previous blog post. Since coming to Shanghai I have also learned about so called “sham marriages” (I forget the Chinese name. If you know it please post it in the comments), which are when the women in a lesbian couple and the men in a gay couple split off into two straight marriages or when a lesbian and a gay man get married. These sham marriages are purely for show, the fake heterosexual couples only spend the Chinese New Year together while visiting the in laws, for most of the year everyone can be with their true loves.
In finishing up his argument Mr. Palmer compares America’s Christian society and its “tradition of aggressive masculinity that sees gay men as ‘weak’ or ‘unmanly’” to China, a country that “doesn’t have any of this.” I can understand this argument, and it does hold true much of the time. For example, in my classroom last year effeminate boys were some of the most popular students and were not harassed as they might have been in America. Male friendships are also of a different nature in China and can be worlds away from the American tradition. Of course nothing is this black and white. The comments posted by Chinese citizens on a recent BBS about Taiwan’s LGBT Pride parade were often deeply derogatory and violent. So while being “unmanly” in the eyes of a male American may not be much of a problem in China, being openly gay and proud most certainly is.
The fight for gay rights in America is often, as Mr. Palmer writes, preaching against the “low-level homophobia of the playground” and showing that members of the LGBT community are productive and kind people just like everyone else. At the same time though the fight for gay rights in China often means bringing up a topic that isn’t even discussed on the playground, let alone used derogatorily among students. When homosexuality is as closeted as it is in most of China fighting for gay rights can be a huge undertaking.
Mr. Palmer seems to be saying that since China lacks a large Christian community (though, in all fairness, it is growing by leaps and bounds) and an American style love of macho manliness, that means that gay rights will flourish here unimpeded. Maybe, but as of yet most of the flousihing of the Chinese LGBT community is happening outside of the public eye. China’s gay community has to take the big step of coming out of the closet and promoting others to do the same before real dramatic changes can take place. Mr. Palmer writes: “It might be that in 20 years time or longer, China recognizes gay marriage, while large parts of the US and Europe continue to be stuck in the past.” But for this to happen in China there will have to be a strong open gay community, a governmnet not vague in its stance on gay rights, and probably an explosive moment that ushers in real changes. Just as Stonewall started the modern gay rights movement in America 40 years ago, a strong stand against prejuidce and hiding could bring needed changes to the Chinese LGBT community. If that happens I would not be surprised if it took less than 40 years for China to reach the kind of support and acceptance that I can find in my home state of Massachusetts. I and the tens of millions of LGBT Chinese are waiting.
