Before the 1990’s, there was nowhere else for the gay community to meet apart from a limited range of places like “Dong Gong Xi Gong” and Dongdan Park. Exchanging contact details was often limited to either writing or sticking a post-it on public bathroom walls. The emergence of homosexual bars opened a new avenue for the much maligned community, but as many have discovered, not everyone likes “clubbing.” Some simply cannot afford the luxury of clubs, while others dislike the loud and outspoken package that they offer.
Fortunately, there was a pioneering new wave of online community organizers. Jiang, a longtime Beijing resident, has been operating Aibai Net since 1999, “one of no more than ten sites in China at the time.” It was also around that time friends of Jiang’s, a gay couple, got their parents’ approval to move in together. “It was like fantasized fiction suddenly became non-fiction, since other gays were even marrying girls just to secure their undercover status,” said Jiang. “The couple sort of set an example for me, as they moved on to create a website that symbolized their love, which received the support of many friends. Many years down the track, their personal Internet site was developed into the Aibai Net of today.”
Currently Aibai Net has about 100 registered volunteers. In general, they come from relatively high achieving or academic backgrounds. The financial basis of the organization has been reliant on the contributions of international foundations. “The Internet has done so much for Chinese homosexuals,” said Jiang. “In the early days, many people didn’t know where to go to attain a real sense of belonging, thus became victims of isolation. The discovery of websites that communicated in their language was invaluable to them in terms of personal growth alongside self-discovery.”
Many Chinese homosexual websites have disappeared as quickly as they first appeared, with the current number in operation thought to be approximately 300.
“It has to be noted that the technological trend is different now, as people can open up blogs, of which thousands are related to homosexuality. Many websites are not dedicated to gays but they enable Internet users to create pages of their own. Tianya.cn has gay forums. Sina.com.cn had them too until recently. BBS at schools contains information, and as for QQ messengers, the statistics are simply unaccountable,” Jiang explained.
Aibai Net is now one of city’s most popular gay websites, “We get about 20,000 hits from individual users everyday,” said Jiang. “Our goal is to become the Xinhua [China’s official and biggest news agency] of the homosexual community.”
Aside from parks, bars and the Internet, there are also meeting places organized by NGOs. One such example is “The Beijing Gay Cultural Center” located in the Lianhuachiao area of Beijing. This small center is comfortably furnished with a couch and a bar, and the wall is decorated with a picture of openly gay West Hollywood Mayor John Duran during his visit to the center.
The Vacuum of Law
In 1997, “hooliganism” – a broad term used in China for inappropriate behavior, including acts of violence, abuse and deviancy - was deleted from the Chinese criminal code of conduct. Ever since then, the authorities have loosened up in their approach to homosexual activities. There is however, the exception of major events, such as the “clean up” session in the Dongdan area before the Beijing Olympics. In addition, the Government’s Rectifying Net Vulgarity Project is underway, which has included shutting down a number of homosexual websites.
The fact that the police force is not performing active interference does not equate to there being no issues regarding security and order. The problems are the most prominent in areas like Dongdan Park due to the fact that majority of gay men there are from areas outside of Beijing. The director of Beijing Aizhixing Institute (a NGO providing assistance to disadvantaged groups in China), Wan Yanhai told News China that the diversity of the park’s gay visitors make the security issue more complicated. There have been several occurrences of extortion especially in regard to those homosexuals from areas outside of Beijing. From robbery to prostitution, problems that often plague the heterosexual world are just as prevalent among the homosexual community. However, unlike the heterosexual world, many of these crimes often go undetected. Through fear of humiliation or worse still, being publicly exposed, many homosexuals prefer to avoid contact with the police.
Crises of similar kinds happen online as well. The most common case is fraud involving homosexual dating websites. Extortion or demands of ransom after the victim has agreed to meet with a potential partner online are frequent and according to Wan, “are very hard to control and deal with. In many ways, the homosexual community exists in objectivity, its underground status will only bring about more challenging complications.”
Nowadays, homosexual visitors to parks are aware of the circumstances and have begun forming systems for self-protection. Wan revealed that a Dongdan Association is currently under construction. It has been proposed that it focuses on criminal offences, the promotion of safe sex, including the risks of HIV and AIDS, and providing legal advisory services for victims. “No matter what,” Wan said, “the key to all of this is for the public to acknowledge a justified title for homosexuals. They can only be protected with honesty when they are fully out in the sunlight.”
April 2009