Chinese Gay Masculinities

This thesis investigates how the traits of individual gay man’s masculinities

10 This refers to ethnic Chinese, including those in Taiwan, China and many other overseas Chinese Communities. Again, I follow Lim’s train of thought. I consider Chinese communities in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China may respectively render as capitalist, colonial, and communist. I am aware that capitalist, colonial, and communist backgrounds encourage different attitudes toward male

homosexuality. In this thesis, I put emphasis on Chinese gay communities in Taiwan because Taipei is the nodal point for Pai Hsien-Yung’s “Tea for Two” and Russell Leong’s “Phoenix Eyes”. See Lim Song Hwee. “Screening Homosexuality.” Celluloid Comrades: Representations of Male Homosexuality in Contemporary Chinese Cinemas. Honolulu: U of Hawai‘i P, 19-40.

are recorded in Modern Chinese gay literature and Chinese American gay literature, especially in the aspect of management and adoptions of male sartorial items.

About the construction of Chinese masculinity. Kam Louie (雷金慶) in his Chinese Masculinities in a Globalizing Age (2015) rejects existing studies on the masculinities of Chinese men by western scholars (as already mentioned in the previous section), asserting that the effeminate image of Chinese men is the product of US scenario that Chinese American are the disadvantaged and discriminated ethnic minorities in the United States (1). Louie sets up the groundbreaking theorization of wen-wu in his Theorizing Chinese Masculinity: Society and Gender in China (2002), considering that Wen (文, cultural attainment) and Wu (武, martial valor) underpin Chinese masculinity. Louie doesn’t use yin-yang dyad to discuss Chinese masculinity for the reason that yin-yang dyad is possession of essence for male and female (9), mainly a Daoist concept. In comparison, Wen-wu dyad is a Confucian concept

involving with both “authority of a scholar and that of a soldier”, and emphasizing the need to embody and balance both (11). In his another book Asian Masculinities: The Meaning and Practice of Manhood in China and Japan (2003), Louie also points out that Wen-wu dyad is only applied to Chinese men, but not Chinese women or non-Chinese (4-5). I think this wen character is easily misunderstood by non-non-Chinese society because wen also refers to reading and literacy, a trait that could hardly be related with violence and aggressiveness.

The reason why wen-wu dyad is helpful for discussing Chinese gay masculinities is that Chinese gay men would deploy chances of studying abroad, many in the US, to escape from their filial duties. Many Chinese gay intellectuals and students can adopt a normalizing scholarly lifestyle to showcase wen masculinity and thus conceal their gay sexuality and orientation. Family members would not have a chance to differentiate this disguised gay masculinity from wen masculinity. Chi

Ta-wei (紀大偉), in his “Giving up Family and Becoming men: 1980’s Male

Homosexual Novels” (2017), points out that many Taiwanese gay men from 1970s and 1980s choose the United States as the ultimate destination for higher education if they want to fulfill and practice their gay orientations. In order to achieve such a “gay American dream,”¹¹ many Asian gay men would endure all socioeconomic

restrictions in the US (298-305). While most Taiwanese people render studying in the US a symbol of success and an honor to the family, these Taiwanese gay men would try to achieve success by going abroad. In this context, Chi points out that many gay men would deploy the chance of studying abroad in America in order to pursue their

“gay American dream”, fulfilling family expectation without their family members’

knowledge of these Taiwanese gay men’s sexual inclination.

In the United States, homosexuality is reduced to sodomy in popular culture representation. The top position is “active, dominant, masculine”, and the bottom position is “passive, submissive, feminine” (6-7).¹² However, Tsai Meng-Che (蔡孟 哲), in his master thesis“Ge-Di” Trouble？Note on the Sexual Style of Gay Men in Taiwan (2007) delineates the construction of Taiwanese categorization of Ge (哥 or 葛格 elder brother) Di (弟 or 底迪 younger brother) culture. Ge-di dyad is a

pseudo-familial term emerges in Taiwanese Gay communities in the 90s.¹³ This Ge-di dyad is not based on sexual positions and preferences of the top-bottom dyad in the

11 Chi considers this agency from Taiwan to the United States is a “pilgrimage” (298) from Taiwan the colony to the United States. I think it is pretty much like a gay American dream.

12 Hoang Tan Nguyen. “Introduction.” A View from the Bottom: Asian American Masculinity and Sexual Representation. Durham: Duke UP, 2014. 1-28.

13 Even though, in Meng-Che Tsai’s theorization, ge and di emerged in the 1990s, Tsai raises several examples from Pai Hsien-Yung’s literary works to indicate the appearance of Ge-di interactions in the 1970s. These examples are Pai Hsien-Yung’s〈月夢〉“Yue Meng”[Luna Dream] and 《孽子》 “Nie Zi”[Crystal Boys]. 蔡孟哲（Tsai, Meng-Che）。2007 年。〈哥弟類型的出現〉“Ge di lei xing de chu xian”[The Emergence of Ge-di Categorization] 。《哥弟麻煩？台灣男同志情慾類型學初探》

Ge di ma fang: Taiwan nan tong zhi qing yu lei xing xue chu tang [“Ge-Di” Trouble?: Note on the Sexual Style of Gay Men in Taiwan]。新竹：國立清華大學碩士論文 [Xinzhu: National Tsing-Hua University Master Thesis] 42-52。

United States. Ge-di dyad dislocates the American popular culture representation of top-hood and bottom-hood. While Ge carries traditional masculine traits and appears as an active and dominant character in male homosexual relationships, Di carries a soft-masculinity with a more delicate and thoughtful attitude. Ge has to take part in all the male duties, like in the traditional heterosexual relationship, while Di only needs to enjoy the benefits of Ge’s dedication. However, when it comes to preferences on clothing styles and bodybuilding, Di sometimes is even butcher than Ge in

appearance. Tsai criticizes such a Ge-di dyad is the embodiment of misogynist attitude in Taiwanese gay communities as femininity is abjected and wiped out in the gay communities (34).¹⁴

Again, since the United States cast strong influences on Taiwanese society, the presence of American culture in Taiwan is strong and dominant. No matter whether one may become a wen scholar/intellectual or not, one can consume trendy items from the United States. Chi Ta-Wei, in his “American Orientation: Historicizing Male Homosexuality in 1970s Taiwan Literature” (2017), discusses the commodification¹⁵ of American material (goods and movies) and epistemological (psychological pathology and knowledge) presence in Taiwan literature. Chi points out that

Taiwanese gay men would consume products from the US in order to experience the American consumer lifestyle and live in an “alternative American temporality” (216-218). While many Taiwanese men are inhibited by certain filial duties and agendas in order to fulfill expectations from their family, many closeted Taiwanese gay men are not willing to conform to such restrictions. Taiwanese gay men who live in Taiwan

14 蔡孟哲（Tsai, Meng-Che）。2009 年。〈躺在哥哥的衣櫃〉“Tang zai ge ge de yi gui” [Lying Down in Ge-ge’s Closet]。《酷兒新聲》 Ku er xin shen [Queer Sounding]。桃園：中央大學性／別 研究室 [Taoyuan: National Central University Center for the Studies of Sexualities] 34。

15 Even though the term “commodification” never appears in Chi’s article, all the characters from Taiwanese literary texts cited in Chi’s article are buying products from the US. Foreign goods and products are trendy, and many Taiwanese gay men would buy these products in order to become different from other ordinary Taiwanese people. Thus, I choose the term commodification.

would consume such American commodities and imagine as if they are leading an American consumer lifestyle. From these American commodities, many Taiwanese gay men started to know their identities.

Reviewing studies based on criticism and argumentation of integrationist and assimilated model of “good sexual citizenship,” Travis Kong (江邵琪), in his Chinese Male Homosexualities: Memba, Tongzhi and Golden Boy (2011), points out that, in the modern capitalist society,¹⁶ many gay men have succeeded in obtaining respectful citizenship with their financial security, which however would, therefore, marginalize those who fail to achieve such a financial status. Among several modes of ideal normalization of gay images, Kong points out that a commercially driven pink economy is to transform gay men from a “citizen-pervert” to a “good consumer citizen”. In this image-transformation, a certain consumerism model of gay men is entitled to a better image perceived by dominant late capitalist society because they help build a stable economic community (36). Lastly, Kong suspects that such a cosmopolitan-oriented global gay identity may also marginalize other less successful queer identities in terms of capitalist consumerism. Here I would like to follow Kong’s train of thoughts and ask several questions. (1) What kind of dominant sartorial practices are rendered as ideal representation in Pai Hsien-Yung’s “Tea for Two” and Russell Leong’s “Phoenix Eyes”? (2) How sartorial practices of

transnational Chinese gay men with high socioeconomic status are represented in

“Tea for Two” and “Phoenix Eyes”? (3) How will such sartorial practices with flamboyant clothes bespeak a different literary representation of the gay men

16 John D’Emilio, in his “Capitalism and Gay Identity” (1993, originally 1983), states that capitalist production makes it possible for sexuality to be excused from the purpose of procreation, and

individualized wage labors are thus free from the interdependent agricultural family production (470).

Thus, capitalist society not only encourages the appearance of gay activities but also changes the meaning of family from a household economy, or a workplace for production, to “the setting for a

‘personal life’” (469) focusing on the cultivation of individualism.

experiences?

Since many gay men from a better socioeconomic class enjoy the discretionary income, it is necessary to take their professions and socioeconomic status into

account. Globalization reshapes the definition of masculinities. The establishment of transnational corporations based on global labor division in the modern capitalist society is a common corporate model. Robert Connell and Julian Wood, in their

“Globalization and Business Masculinities” (2005), point out a new trend of

hegemonic masculinity derived from the transnational business. In these transnational corporations, global traffic of managers among global cities in transnational

corporations is common. Transnationally mobile managers are financially afloat.

Their frequent travels around the globe also give them more opportunities for casual sexual practices. Even hostility toward homosexuality in managerial positions is declining, making gay men willing to come out of the closet at work if well managed under “peer scrutiny” (353). Dress code for this class is required: they all need to appear professional and assertive. Thus, a conservative suit is preferred. Robert Connell’s example is a kind of straight gay men who only consent to reveal because of their high socioeconomic status.