Results tagged “homosexuality”

       

Recently "Tale of 4 Cities" launched it's weekly dinner "theater" series, a Thursday cabaret evening with the vision to impart a bit of "Le Gai Paris" into Shanghai´s nightlife scene. The problem is, if you're looking for actual "theater," the show invariably will seem like it doesn't fit. It's a drag show, pure and simple - and a charming one full of social potential - so you might as well just call it by its proper name and put it in its proper genre.

U.S. President Obama has nominated the first openly gay person to become an ambassador and - would you look at that? - he's based in Shanghai! Shanghai Pride, for real. David Huebner heads the China Practice and International Disputes Practice of Los Angeles law firm Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton from its Shanghai office. While his position still needs to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, he's been nominated to be ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa. Source: Bloomberg

Update: Due to ownership quarrels, the film Buenos Aires Zero Degree will not be screened as planned on Thursday. Vienna Café is replacing it with Stephen Daldry´s The Hours. And while that´s an awesome movie, it´s still a sad exchange, since The Hours has probably already been seen by most of us and is very easy to access - while...heaven knows when we´ll get the chance to see that Wong Kar Wai Documentary again...

Renowned sexologist and sociologist Li Yinhe (李银河) writes in a recent blogpost on China's laws against gay blood donors. A group of lesbians in Beijing are now fighting for the right to donate blood:

Renowned sexologist and sociologist Li Yinhe (李银河) in a recent blogpost on the lives of tongqi (同妻), heterosexual women who find themselves married to gay Chinese men (translation adapted from Yawning Bread):

The fastest rising demographic of people contracting HIV/AIDS in Shanghai are "city men who have sex with men," according to Shanghai Daily. At a medical forum yesterday, experts said that the amount of HIV/AIDS cases involving these fraternizations has risen fivefold. While incidences of syphilis have remained relatively stable, the HIV/AIDS incidence rate has increased from 1.5% in 2005 to 7.5% in 2007. The forum emphasized that as society is becoming more tolerant o the LGBTa community, intervention and education initiatives should be intensified.

我想提醒你的是，这里是外交部的新闻发布厅，
不是讨论同性恋问题的场所。
What I'd like to remind you is this.This is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs press conference and not a forum for the discussion of gay issues.

                    

Shanghaiist intern Kirsti Jönson, who covered Shanghai Pride (a China first!) last week, gives us her account of the event and what it might mean for all the LGBTa living in China.

       

Public parks, bath houses, news stands—these were some of the venues for gay people to meet in the old days of Shanghai. The second day of Shanghai Pride featured a panel discussion on gay spaces throughout Shanghai history, along with a brief primer on the creation and reception of China´s first university course on homosexuality at Shanghai's Fudan University. Around 150 people gathered at Kathleen's 5 to listen and learn.

Take up the IDAHO Challenge from Gays.com on Vimeo.

We see evidence of China's growing gender gap all around us - every time a new ladies' night crops up at a bar, for instance. But now in China, according to a new study, there are officially 32 million more boys than girls under the age of 20.

• Beijing professor's remarks spark angry protests [AFP] "About 30 protesters tried to force their way into China's elite Peking University on Friday to confront a law professor who said 99 percent of the people petitioning the government with grievances are mentally ill and could be institutionalized."
• Chinese Online Games Market Grew 63% In 2008 [Gamasutra] "New data from analyst group Pearl Research shows that China's online games market grew 63 percent in 2008 to a total $2.8 billion. In its new Games Market in China report, Pearl Research forecasts that the Chinese online market will be worth more than $5.5 billion by 2012."
• The Pavilion Wars [The Atlantic] "The upcoming World's Fair should offer the chance to build a showpiece U.S. pavilion. But thanks to behind-the-scenes maneuverings and State Department incompetence, we may end up with a Chinese-funded pavilion—or no pavilion at all."

Is forcing men into unwanted marriages helping the spread of AIDS? According to Zhang Beichuan, a professor at Qingdao University, that—and the lack of men willing to out themselves by taking an AIDS test—has been holding back efforts to treat the endemic. HIV/AIDS was recently declared the deadliest infectious disease in the country.

While we were getting gussied up for the Shanghaiist Valentine's Day party, homosexuals in Beijing were taking to the streets in a remarkably open advocation of gay marriage.

The Independent has named Shanghai as one of the world's five most improved places for gay tolerance. The other four cities named were New Delhi, Tel Aviv, Cape Town and Havana. [Source]

The latest episode of Queer As Folk Beijing, China's first independent gay video podcast, discusses homophobia in China today. Parts 2 and 3 of the show after the jump.

Following on from the story of a straight couple's clinch on the metro in January, the latest video doing the Chinese internet rounds is an all-girl couple getting frisky on line 2.

A Date With Lu Yu《鲁豫有约》is one of the most influential talkshows in China which has been known to constantly push the envelope and to broach topics previously considered too hot to touch. One such episode is the one below which features two homosexual men from the Sichuan Province — who, long before the word "gay" had entered the Chinese lexicon — married each other, adopted a son and have been together for 21 years.

Since the time we told you about Shirley Phelps-Roper's email to China Daily columnist Raymond Zhou, everybody's favourite church, the Westboro Baptist Church has completely revamped its official website GodHatesFags.com (check it out — it actually is looking kinda swanky now). Looking through the site, we found this press release sent out in late January, when China was suffering its worst winter storm in 50 years, praising the Lord for "punishing" China — "that evil nation, awash with the sins of Sodom" — and saying that God was warning China through it all to either "repent or perish".