y*****g
发帖数: 1822 | 1 Coming Out in China: The True Cost of Being Gay in Beijing
By A KUAI / WORLDCRUNCH Wednesday, July 13, 2011
After he left Tianjin last year, Zhang Xiaobai realized that homosexuals are
not "rare birds."
When he was still in primary school, Zhang (not his real name) found that he
was attracted to boys. Particularly after each physical-education class,
when he looked at the sweat-soaked back of a boy he liked, he felt dazed.
The feeling got stronger when he entered high school and fell secretly
amorous of a tall and strong classmate. He was always eager to approach him
and became fascinated with the occasional moment of physical contact.
That was in the mid-1990s, when the term homosexuality was far from ordinary
in Chinese people's life. Zhang couldn't find anyone similar to him, and he
thought he was strange. He couldn't tell his parents, sure that they wouldn
't be able to understand. "I was trying to hide it from everybody. Nobody
told me this is normal," Zhang recalls. "I felt like I was sick."
After graduating from university, family and friends were enthusiastic to
fix him up with a girl. He didn't know how to refuse and finally yielded to
the pressure, marrying a girl his parents liked. He was hounded by feelings
of guilt and inadequacy. "But if I can't possibly love her, I can at least
try my best to be a good husband," he says he told himself. So as not to
disappoint his parents, Zhang and his wife had a son right after being
married.
Each Valentine's Day and on their wedding anniversary, Zhang would buy his
wife flowers and gifts, trying to compensate materially for his missing
heart.
Life went by. Nothing changed for more than 10 years. And then he started
logging into the online world where gay Chinese interact. In some chat
forums, people wanted to meet him, but he never accepted the invitation.
In 2009 Zhang took a work trip to Beijing. One night, after leaving a bar,
he saw another bar at the other side of the road. He has seen the name so
many times in a forum, a "shrine" for homosexuals, like Dongdan Park, said
to be the biggest gathering place in the world for gays.
(See a brief history of international gay marriage.)
He knew there were similar places back in Tianjin but thought it was too
risky that he might bump into acquaintances in those spots.
The next day, he went to the bar without letting his colleague know. The
atmosphere was relaxed. Like at other bars, there were people trying to
strike up conversation and flirting. For the first time in his 30 years of
life, he was not denying his identity. He talked to all kinds of people from
different professions. There were company employees, lawyers and a lot of
media people.
In comparison with the digital world, the live encounter with other gays was
a shock to him. When he finished his mission and went back to Tianjin, he
was determined to leave his job. He told his family he wanted to look for
advancement in Beijing. Nobody understood why. He just told them, "I'm
already 30-something. It will be too late if I don't think for myself."
First Love
His wife stayed in Tianjin. They had gradually grown apart. She no longer
demanded that he always come home. He made new acquaintances, and then found
his lover, a designer in his 30s.
This was the first love of his life. Like other couples, they went to films
and chose which restaurants to go to after work. Though they kept separate
places, Zhang was stable in his relations. He felt that he had found a new
direction for his life. For the first time, he didn't feel so bad being gay.
His friends and colleagues accepted him. He was finally completely relaxed.
It went on in this way for about a year, until 2010. He felt he was no
longer able to leave his boyfriend and went home to Tianjin less frequently.
He decided it was time to tell his family.
(See why Asia's gays are starting to win acceptance.)
"I knew I had to be courageous," he says. "It was too difficult for me to
continue with two emotions at the same time. I was prepared to break up with
my family."
After New Year's Day this year, Zhang invited his wife, his parents and his
parents-in-law to dinner. He announced the truth near the end of the meal.
The fathers didn't quite believe him, and everybody at the table was
startled. Then his mother, who has a hypertension problem, fainted. His wife
smacked his face and left. He later cried and knelt in front of his father
beside the hospital bed of his mother, asking for forgiveness.
"It was really like a second-rate TV drama," he says. "The whole family was
crying. I had never imagined that it would ever happen to me."
Zhang's wife divorced him without hesitation and won full custody of their
son. Relatives scolded him, saying he was irresponsible. He tries to
compensate everybody with money. He gave his house to his ex-wife and pays
to support his parents, the cost of coming out. Zhang's parents are still in
a cold war with him: his mother won't speak to him. He worries that his son
will suffer from being laughed at when his friends find out that his father
is gay.
Nevertheless, Zhang does not think his life is a tragedy and is relieved
that at least now he is living according to his true identity. Every time he
hears that some "comrade" plans to get married, he always tells them of his
own experience: "Don't try to solve the problem by getting married. It will
only hurt more people."
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2082914-1,00.html | m******8
发帖数: 2153 | 2 给钱也不是好办法，别人还真认为都是你的错呢，这社会和父母多有部分职任。 | y*****g
发帖数: 1822 | 3
若果给了钱後另一方不再追究的话, 问题也总算暂时解决过来。 但许多时候，另一
方若不肯就此妥协的话，情况会变得很恶劣。
【在 m******8 的大作中提到】
: 给钱也不是好办法，别人还真认为都是你的错呢，这社会和父母多有部分职任。
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