The Changing Face of Gay Life in Asia

[Guest fountainhall]

There’s another interesting article on the www.fridae.com news section about a new book, one of a series, titled Queer Bangkok: 21st Century markets, Media and Rights. This is the fifth volume in the Queer Asia series published by the Hong Kong University Press. The lead writer is Peter A. Jackson, an Australian academic who specialises in Thai cultural history; the history of sexuality and sexual cultures; Buddhism and religious studies.

 

Various ‘experts’ are brought together to “piece together a picture of how Thailand’s politics, economics, art, society and views of sex affect the LGBT people who actually live there as opposed to just pass through.”

 

The review traces the book’s history of sex in Thailand and the foundation of the commercial sex industry for foreigners. Today, it suggests, “Almost everyone, even if they can’t afford to, dreams of going to Thailand to get laid.”

 

Whilst it does outline other reasons why tourists come to Thailand, the book and article focus on sex, and especially the changing nature of the sex industry - facts which have been noted in threads on this and other Boards over the last year or two.

 

In a long analysis of the book, there are many other points which have been related elsewhere. It also concludes with more views expressed on this Board more than once -

 

The wider point on which I would close is to expand Jackson’s thesis with the recognition that the 21st Century world has changed irrevocably. Asia, particularly China, is already its focus, not the West. The apologetics of queer theory are rapidly becoming outdated. Peter Jackson has observed in Bangkok the start of a much bigger trend.

 

Asia’s LGBT communities will build their own ways of life in the future and these will increasingly differ from those of the West. Today Bangkok has already developed its own LGBT ‘economics’ and has played its part in leading Asia away from western models. I suspect and hope that China, when that behemoth’s LGBT communities are finally set free by its ascent to wealth, will tomorrow change the face of queer theory for ever!

http://www.fridae.asia/newsfeatures/2011/09/28/11223.queer-bangkok-21st-century-markets-media-and-rights

[Guest]

Long term, I could envisage lots of Chinese visiting Thailand, via low cost airlines and even a high speed rail link.

Considering the Chinese population is near to double that of the US and EU combined AND Thailand is a short haul destination for them, you might eventually expect more than 2 Chinese visitors for every EU/US visitor.

 

However, as it stands, average salaries in China are low, holidays are shorter and I hear the Chinese government still doesn't make it that easy for it's people to travel abroad.

 

There are a few more years left in the western tourist yet, or at least for those who manage to remain solvent, in the face of irresponsible fiscal policies.

[Rogie]

There are a few more years left in the western tourist yet . . .

It's fascinating to speculate about how tourism might look in the next few decades.

 

If the Chinese are like the Japanese, polite and high-spending, they'll be most welcome anywhere, and get anywhere and everywhere they surely shall.

 

What will it be like for tourists from small countries? Take Britons for example. We are used to going to foreign places, the 'costas' in Spain being the most famous, and seeing signs in English and being welcomed by locals speaking our own tongue! The weather's better, other than that it's almost like we never left home! Tourists from other small countries, where the language is not widely spoken outside that country, have to either learn a few words of the local language of the country they are visiting or get by in English (no hardship for many as they probably speak decent English anyway, Scandinavians for example).

 

We've seen this already of course, signs in Japanese and Russian for example, so I think what we will see more of in relation to Chinese visitors is countries which attract large numbers of tourists will go down the 'make the Chinese feel they've never left home' route. So again, using us limeys as an example, we'll have to get used to places where (Mandarin) Chinese rules, both spoken and written. If a Brit wants to feel 'wanted' he'll have to either learn a few words of Chinese or the local language.

Better start now . . . B)

[Guest fountainhall]

If a Brit wants to feel 'wanted' he'll have to either learn a few words of Chinese or the local language.

Better start now . . . B)

z909 is correct in saying Chinese salaries are low. But that's the average. Tens of millions (maybe hundreds) in the cities are pretty well off and there is now a middle class with the same aspirations on any middle class anywhere. Overseas travel is already one of their regular activities - or soon will be for many. The example of Japan is the obvious one. Prior to the boom years of the 1980s, not many Japanese could afford to travel abroad. Besides, airfares out of Japan were horrendously high. As people got wealthier and travel increased, so costs came rocketing down. Anyone who's been to Honolulu in the last 20 years will be forgiven for thinking it's part of Japan! Even last week in Moscow I bumped into quite a number of Japanese tourists!

 

I haven't yet seen much evidence of gay travel from China in Thailand. But many go to Hong Kong regularly (where, ironically, it is more difficult for many mainland Chinese to travel than to Thailand!). On my last two visits, I have attended my usual little sauna. The first time I met two guys from Hangzhou and one from Guangzhou. Last time, it was one from Shenzen and one from Shanghai!. These guys have money to burn, they come with gay friends for shopping, food, nightlife - and the gay scene. And, boy, are they cute and horny!

 

My belief is that most of the Chinese gay guys who are now travelling do so independently or in small groups, and speak pretty good English. As z909 again suggests, their numbers are going to explode in the next few years. If I had some spare cash and a Chinese business partner, I'd have no hesitation in setting up an on-line travel company primarily for mainland Chinese gays. I'm certain it would make a mint. But then I'd need to learn quite a few more words of Putonghua (Mandarin Chinese)!

[Guest]

So far, I do find the Chinese to be very polite, just like the Japanese. However, for the Chinese, the sample of people I've met consists entirely of young University educated types.

 

I understand permission to travel abroad on holiday is possible, but isn't granted that freely. So that could suppress numbers.

 

A Chinese gay travel site is an interesting idea. Finding a business partner should not be that difficult.

 

As for the decline in western tourist numbers, all we can usefully do is manage our own finances so we are hopefully able to continue travelling to SE Asia on a frequent basis.

[Guest fountainhall]

I understand permission to travel abroad on holiday is possible, but isn't granted that freely. So that could suppress numbers.

It's my impression that the limiting factor is more cost - and less permits. For example, Chinese do not need exit permits nor entry visas for Thailand. They automatically get 15 days on entry. Yet they must have permits to travel to Hong Kong!

[pong]

It's my impression that the limiting factor is more cost - and less permits. For example, Chinese do not need exit permits nor entry visas for Thailand. They automatically get 15 days on entry. Yet they must have permits to travel to Hong Kong!

this is not quite right, as far as have learnt it from them:

1.they DO need some kind of exit-permit, this is speedily (automatically if you want it) granted when they apply for it the usual way- by joining a group tour. Thailand does not ''automatically'' give visa-visa are always on 'discretion'' but that is hardly bothering and cost is again 1000THB.

2.dear khun FH-in this case I think you are mixing 2 types of visits for mainland Chinese up; single individual visits to HKG are also regulated by HKG itself-they do not want to be swamped any 1/10 golden week by a few billion of mainlanders.

[pong]

1.It's fascinating to speculate about how tourism might look in the next few decades.

2.If the Chinese are like the Japanese, polite and high-spending, they'll be most welcome anywhere, and get anywhere and everywhere they surely shall.

@1. the only thing you can be pretty sure about is that it will be different as anyone know can think/dream of.

2.no-mainland Chinese are not. They could well be compared with what a few days ago was written about the Russky: perhaps that comunist heritage? Just go out of that Silom/ enclave-safety zone and take a peek at major tourist passing places like the quays for boatrides or that floatig amarket; a groupe of country bumpkins to the xtreme, very easily distinguished from the HK/Taiwan-chinese Singaporese etc. Have travelled by myself the last 5 years 3 times across China-many different parts, also out of the tourist zones and without a guide, but with a guidebook. Remember the complaints here about those groups visiting the gay go-gobars and gaping at anything ''we dont have that @ home?''

[pong]

[quote name='fountainhall' timestamp='1317301677' post='52718'

 

In a long analysis of the book, there are many other points which have been related elsewhere. It also concludes with more views expressed on this Board more than once -

 

But dear khun FHJ-you made us/me so curious and you are not even revealing what the essence of the article is? THis mr. Jackson has indeed written 2 or 3 books about the life of gay Thai. But as soon as I start reading about that PC titling of GLBT etc.-this simply does not exist in Thailand. Is most often a sign of well-intended, but missing the point western subsidy for pitiful minorities. Though somehow I suspect this professor to also either ''lurk'' or post on some of the Thai gay boards.

What I recall from previous discussions is mainly the switch-over to more www sites and fewer real brick+stone shops. Fewer a gogo with boys to peruse and more perusing og various websites. And fewer westerners/whiteys and more Asians (but somehow I think whitey is stable and Asians more up). Only touched on in the passig, but IMHO also relevant; fewer working Thai at young age and more from countries around: Laos, Myanmar=Birma etc.

[pong]

A Chinese gay travel site is an interesting idea. Finding a business partner should not be that difficult.

And now my idea about how that booming Chinese economy will stall-sooner or later:

China only allows/takes their own people running bisnis. They milk out western firms till they have what to them seems enough to carry on by their own.

The higher those figures about booming economy, the more suspect you should get: they fake everything, statistics and even signal systems for their new high-speed trains and metro-systems. In the end it is my beleive that no country can survive that is being led by fossile dinosaurs of 80+ (every now and the they adopt a youngie-of 66+) and with a rampant corrupt mid-management -so corrupt that even Thaksin and his family/cronies pale in comparison. Most of you are mature enough to remember the same hype about Japan and the Pacific-rim booming tigers: see what has come from Japans economy since 2000. By the time it is stalling-oh, do not worry, there will be a new booming tiger-economy (India?)-going all the same way. They can only build and construct for things to last a year of 4-5 and then they fall apart-well, at least that keeps doestic economy alive, but wont be a big moneymaker.

OTOH: illegal poor Chinese are still sneeking out of their own mainland to go and find low-paid work in countries like Thailand-estimates are that 1000s if not 10000s are living like that in BKKs Chinatown. Surely there is a big market-weekends in that area where every 2nd seller is unable to speak Thai and looks very much mainlanderish.

[Guest fountainhall]

But dear khun FHJ-you made us/me so curious and you are not even revealing what the essence of the article is?

You are correct. I did not read all the detail, but I thought what little I read worthy of attention. Having now read it more carefully and considered your comments, let me respond to a few. (You spread your comments over four posts – I’ll pack all mine into one!)

 

THis mr. Jackson has indeed written 2 or 3 books about the life of gay Thai. But as soon as I start reading about that PC titling of GLBT etc.-this simply does not exist in Thailand. Is most often a sign of well-intended, but missing the point western subsidy for pitiful minorities.

This, I suggest, is misleading. The publishers of the Queer Asia series is the Hong Kong University Press, hardly a publishing house known for “missing the point”. The editors of the Queer Asia series are -

 

- Chris Berry is Professor of Film and Television Studies in the Department of Media and Communication at Goldsmiths, University of London.

- John Nguyet Erni is Professor in the Department of Cultural Studies, Lingnan University, Hong Kong.

- Peter Jackson is Professor of Thai Cultural Studies in the Australian National University's College of Asia and the Pacific, and Editor-in-Chief of Asian Studies Review.

- Helen Hok-Sze Leung is Associate Professor in the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies at Simon Fraser University, Canada.

 

Yes, three are western-based, but one is Hong Kong based, another is of Chinese ethnic origin, and a third is a Professor of Thai Cultural Studies. And of the 27 members of the advisory Board, more than half are Australasian based. I hardly think this shows much western bias.

 

This being the second decade of the 21st century, I do agree, however, that the language of the text is weird. The use of the word “queer” is surely anachronistic for the entire series. And for the Thailand volume, it would have been far more valuable had the writers spent much more time looking outside Bangkok.

 

They could well be compared with what a few days ago was written about the Russky: perhaps that comunist heritage? Just go out of that Silom/ enclave-safety zone and take a peek at major tourist passing places like the quays for boatrides or that floatig amarket; a groupe of country bumpkins to the xtreme, very easily distinguished from the HK/Taiwan-chinese Singaporese etc.

This again is correct – but only up to a point. Like the early Japanese in the 1970s, the Chinese are indeed travelling on package tours of generally lowish income groups. But you only have to look at tourism in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and other countries to see that much wealthier individuals from the new mainland middle-class are now travelling in very considerable numbers. This is where the outbound tourism development of China and Japan has largely differed. In Japan, the group takes precedence over the individual, and so individual and family tourism from Japan (apart from a smallish number of students) took a great deal of time to develop, as you pointed out in an earlier post. Individual and small groups of middle-income earners from China now travel all over the world, but especially in South East Asia.

 

You make a point about exit permits. My knowledge comes from friends in Shanghai who run their own small business. They have complete freedom to travel to Thailand, but not to Hong Kong – even for business. In fact, it is easier for them to enter Hong Kong through Thailand than it is to get a permit in Shanghai just to visit Hong Kong. Of course, as you rightly point out, Hong Kong is a special case and both the mainland and Hong Kong governments are desperate to avoid too great an influx into the tiny territory of Hong Kong and so tourism is strictly controlled.

 

And now my idea about how that booming Chinese economy will stall-sooner or later:

China only allows/takes their own people running bisnis. They milk out western firms till they have what to them seems enough to carry on by their own.

The higher those figures about booming economy, the more suspect you should get: they fake everything, statistics and even signal systems for their new high-speed trains and metro-systems. In the end it is my belief that no country can survive that is being led by fossile dinosaurs of 80+ (every now and the they adopt a youngie-of 66+) and with a rampant corrupt mid-management -so corrupt that even Thaksin and his family/cronies pale in comparison.

I have quoted from your post at length because I both agree and disagree with it. To claim that China is being led by “fossile dinosaurs of 80+” is, frankly, quite untrue. It was certainly true 25 + years ago, but no longer. In fact, since the late 1990s, there is an unofficial rule that the those in the leadership must retire at age 68. (Ronald Reagan would not even have been able to run for his first term as President had that been the rule in the USA!) I also consider the Chinese leadership has had some extremely bright and competent individuals.

 

But that does not disguise the point you make about the system. Yes, a one-party system can manipulate figures, fake whatever they wish . . .and so on. And it is certainly true that corruption in China is rampant, much more than the number of cases so far brought to court, I’m sure. Yet, you cannot take away from China the fact that its system, like it or not, has dragged hundreds of millions out of grinding poverty in a shorter period than at any other time in world history. That is fact. I defy any country and any government controlling 1.4 billion souls to achieve that without some people getting obscenely rich and others taking their cuts all along the line. Indeed, let’s face it, that has been the system throughout all the millennia of Chinese history - when it was termed “squeeze”. It is nothing new!

 

Nor can you deny the wealth the country has built up in that same period of time. China has in its reserves in excess of $1.2 trillion of US debt. It is virtually the manufacturing centre of the world. Several times China has come to the rescue of the world’s financial system by deliberately not devaluing its currency, a point noted with gratitude by several US Treasury Secretaries.

 

So, the world needs China and the world depends on China. The real question is: how will the Chinese government maintain the social contract it has with its people – increasing standards of living in return for stability and no political interference. It is already facing unrest in various parts of the country and it has to find a way to stop that. The country’s military might is such that it can virtually stop anything should it so wish. But my friends in Shanghai, and millions like them, will no longer accept crack-downs like Tian’anmen Square. And that’s perhaps one reason why Premier Wen Jia Bao in a speech two days ago pledged to address China’s biggest social issues, including rising inflation, the increasing income gap, unemployment, corruption, environmental destruction and social justice. Political reform was included in that list.

 

Yes, we’ve heard that before, and yet everything appears to continue as before. I happen to have a great deal of respect for Mr. Wen. My major concern is what will happen in 2013 when he has to step down. By then, however, the world is likely to need a stable China - and its outbound tourists - even more so than now!

[Guest Doug]

What is the ratio of young Chinese men to women? Why would a Chinese gay have have to travel abroad to find a willing partner? I don't think Sunee Plaza need fear being over run by Chinese.

[Guest fountainhall]

What is the ratio of young Chinese men to women? Why would a Chinese gay have have to travel abroad to find a willing partner?

Figures vary according to who is providing the statistics. But the first generation of the one-child policy is now maturing. A couple of years ago CBS 60 Minutes did a study on the subject and estimated that there is an imbalance of roughly 40 million more young men than young women. According to the latest official census, 120 boys are born for every 100 girls.

 

Clearly, the vast majority of these young men will not be gay and will hope somehow to find brides (although that in itself will create a huge social strain as girls now want guys with money!) Of those who are gay, few can be open about their sexuality. In the main cities, it is easier to meet other gay men and even to establish relationships. But in the countryside, where the majority of people live, the closed nature of country communities and the stigma that still exists against homosexuality - despite government policy having changed and now being accepting of it - will continue to make it much more difficult for many more years.

 

I guess you have at look at attitudes in most of China rather as they were in the west 40 - 50 years ago. If you remember or know what that was like, then you'll understand why many Chinese gay men will be winging their way to other parts of Asia with sex high on their list of things to do.

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/13/60minutes/main1496589.shtml