I saw a news story today on Yahoo, of a gay marriage in China. I was like "oh that's unusual in China; a gay marriage" and usually these things don't interest me a great deal, but then as I was skimming over the article I saw a line about "old men", the word "sex" and something in inverted commas (两名老年男同性恋者在支持者的见证下举行“婚礼...) Well,...things just got interesting.
When I translated the sentence I was shocked. I laughed to myself. Translated, that sentence means Supporters witnessed, two elderly men who have sex with men, held a "wedding". I asked my girlfriend if there was no such thing as the word "gay" or "homosexual" in China as it seems quite a strange and slightly disturbing and overly descriptive choice of words. No beating about the bush here. No friendly sounding words like "gay" or "homo" but just short of declaring "let's have it right; they're men who fuck other men".
I did a bit more research into this issue, as I wasn't sure, are same sex marriages in China allowed, and I stumbled across this article on Bloomberg...
"there’s little question that this is a real phenomenon -- and one not new to China. Straight women married to gay men have long been known as “tongqi" [translated means WITH WIFE], and the state-owned news media have covered their problems for at least a decade."
So it seems that the gay marriage issue have been going on for a long time, and people globally are prejudiced against it - it's not just Western society. At least the Chinese don't hide behind religion or anything and say that same-sex marriages are wrong. They don't want to use any other words to describe it. It is what it is. Two old men who have sex with other men, getting married.
And my girlfriend's answer to my question, do Chinese use the word "gay"? She told me that calling them gay is quite rude towards them.
"We call gay people 同性恋 (tongzinglian)" she told me, "which means "same sex fall in love with each other which is more polite. It doesn't mean to be harsh".
The whole Bloomberg article is pretty interesting as it goes on to say not that gay marriage is wrong, but how this is actually a feminist issue and how sham marriages in China affect the women involved!
BTW, the title for this article are the names of the couple in the picture. You can find more info in English here.
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| Screenshot taken from Yahoo.cn News website. Isn't his dress lovely... |
I did a bit more research into this issue, as I wasn't sure, are same sex marriages in China allowed, and I stumbled across this article on Bloomberg...
"there’s little question that this is a real phenomenon -- and one not new to China. Straight women married to gay men have long been known as “tongqi" [translated means WITH WIFE], and the state-owned news media have covered their problems for at least a decade."
So it seems that the gay marriage issue have been going on for a long time, and people globally are prejudiced against it - it's not just Western society. At least the Chinese don't hide behind religion or anything and say that same-sex marriages are wrong. They don't want to use any other words to describe it. It is what it is. Two old men who have sex with other men, getting married.
And my girlfriend's answer to my question, do Chinese use the word "gay"? She told me that calling them gay is quite rude towards them.
"We call gay people 同性恋 (tongzinglian)" she told me, "which means "same sex fall in love with each other which is more polite. It doesn't mean to be harsh".
The whole Bloomberg article is pretty interesting as it goes on to say not that gay marriage is wrong, but how this is actually a feminist issue and how sham marriages in China affect the women involved!
BTW, the title for this article are the names of the couple in the picture. You can find more info in English here.
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