The Seduction of the Golden Boy: The Body Politics of Hong Kong Gay Men
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02 Kong (JG/d) 22/2/02 11:49 am Page 29
The Seduction of the Golden Boy: The
Body Politics of Hong Kong Gay Men
TRAVIS S.K. KONG
This article seeks to investigate the self-identity of Hong Kong gay men under
the constellation of the global culture in two different ‘sites of desire’, namely
Hong Kong and London. In order to study the notion of self-identity and its
related concepts of body and masculinity, I have mainly drawn upon literature
from deconstructionism (Derrida, 1981; Foucault, 1970; Hall, 1996a, 1996b),
queer theory (Butler, 1990; Fuss, 1991; Sedgwick, 1990; Warner, 1993) and post-
colonial writings (Fanon, 1970; Manderson and Jolly, 1997; Said, 1978; Stoler,
1995).
For me, every identity has a history, and one’s identity cannot be separated
from one’s racial, sexual, national or class positions, one’s age, and even one’s
physical fitness. ‘Gay’ or ‘lesbian’ as identities cannot be considered apart from
these other ‘identity components’ (Seidman, 1996); there is no separate, indepen-
dent ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ experience that can be marked off. There are no general
categories of ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’, only gay men and lesbians who simultaneously
occupy particular positions of race, class, sex, gender, age group, physical embodi-
ment, national social positions, etc. (Mouffe, 1995). We, or our identities, thus
embody,1 through various forms and meanings, a vast and rambling multiple
positioning and re-positioning of the self.
Postcolonial sexual identities should thus be read as plural, unstable and
regulatory. Identities are always multiple and involve ‘identity-components’
which intersect or combine with one another. Identity constructs are necess-
arily unstable as they elicit opposition from people whose identities are
constructed differently from their own ‘identity-components’. Moreover,
Body & Society © 2002 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi),
Vol. 8(1): 29–48
[1357–034X(200203)8:1;29–48;022620]02 Kong (JG/d) 22/2/02 11:49 am Page 30
30 Body and Society Vol. 8 No. 1
identity construction is itself part of the disciplinary and regulatory structures
that frame the self, body, desires, actions and social relations.
It is on the basis of this understanding that I have decided to look at the
embodied identities of Hong Kong gay men in relation to the different
components of their lives, including love, sex, gender, family, class, religion, age,
physical body, social mobility, nationality, etc. But the embodied identities of
Hong Kong gay men are not merely the additive experiences of these ‘identity-
components’. Rather they are the result of multifarious and contradictory sets of
oppression within specific institutional arenas. Postcolonial embodied sexual
identities should therefore be understood in terms of this ‘politics of difference’
in order to celebrate the multiple ways of experiencing homosexual desires (see
Mac an Ghaill, 1994).
This theoretical understanding has enabled me to reveal how the personal
identities of Hong Kong gay men intersect with race, colonial history and
sexuality. Since these three schools of thought have usually drawn heavily on the
legacy of post-structuralism and postmodernism, there is a risk of reducing the
social to merely a discourse analysis (Seidman, 1994; Seidman and Wagner, 1992;
Smith, 1996). In order to minimize this risk, I have employed the life-history
method as my major research strategy to examine the notion of self-identity, and
used in-depth, semi-structured interviews as ways of collecting the ‘lived
experiences’ of Hong Kong gay men (Denzin and Lincoln, 1994; Plummer, 1983;
Stein, 1997). Between 1997 and 1998, 34 Hong Kong self-identified gay men were
interviewed either in Hong Kong or in London using a life-history approach.2
Through these interviews, I tried to understand how some individuals, who share
a marginalized sexual identity as homosexuals (being ‘gay’ or ‘tongzhi’)3 shifted
their identities in particular environments such as Hong Kong and London.
In this article, I will argue that Hong Kong gay men who had or have been
living in London tend to enjoy their sexuality more freely as they are virtually
free from familial and other social and cultural constraints. However, as a sexual
and racial minority in a white and heterosexual society, they seem to suffer a
double form of subordination under different hierarchies of domination. The
second site is Hong Kong. Closely tied to the pattern of family residence, Hong
Kong gay men who have always lived in Hong Kong tend to struggle more with
issues of family and culture, rather than those of race and sexuality (which are of
greater concern to their London counterparts). As Hong Kong has just under-
gone ‘de-colonization’, Hong Kong gay men configure and reconfigure their
sexual desires under the complex interplay between Britain and China. The
increasing closeness between Hong Kong and China has resulted in a new way
of exercising gay male sexuality.02 Kong (JG/d) 22/2/02 11:49 am Page 31
The Seduction of the Golden Boy 31
Hong Kong gay men ‘make’ identities, but not exactly as they please. The
sexual and gender order is perceived as a contested terrain. It is the site of domi-
nance and subordination, the landscape for hegemony and practices of resistance,
and the zone of determination and creation. By comparing 34 Hong Kong gay
men living in London or Hong Kong, I will show how issues of identity differ in
these two contexts. Through the ‘voices’ of Hong Kong gay men, I will criticize
the ‘Western’ construction of identity/the body and offer new insights into the
study of postmodern identities and the newly emerging investigation of the
globalization of bodies.
Hong Kong Gay Men in London: Body/Desire/Masculinity
Hegemonic Masculinity
The Hong Kong gay male embodied identities seem to be an oddity in terms of
the Western construction of masculinity.4 A male Hong Kongese (Chinese, or, in
general, Asian)5 does not conform to conventional masculine white images. A
Hong Kong gay man also ‘fails’ in the eyes of the hegemonic white gay
community of the West. The postcolonial gay male identities of these men there-
fore suffer from a double form of subordination and are both physically and
culturally reconfigured under different hierarchies of domination.
As Connell (1995) argued, hegemonic masculinity refers to a cultural strategy
that some people (mainly men) are required to use to maintain their positions of
power and wealth, and to legitimate and reproduce the social relationships that
generate their dominance. This successful strategy guarantees the subordination
of women in society as well as the marginalization of other masculine styles as
inadequate or inferior, which Connell calls ‘subordinate variants’.
From this perspective, Hong Kong men (Chinese men, or Asian men in
general) are always depicted as one of these ‘subordinate variants’ in Western
hegemonic masculinity. The depiction of Chinese men, or ‘Chinamen’, in
contemporary Western mass culture oscillates between that of a workaholic and
a kung fu master (e.g. Bruce Lee, Jacky Chan). They are seen as ‘sometimes
dangerous, sometimes friendly, but almost always characterized by a desexualised
Zen asceticism’ (Fung, 1996: 183; cf. Fung, 1995).
If images of the Chinese are largely absent in the commercial sector of
mainstream white straight society, what about Chinese gay figures in the
mainstream white gay and lesbian communities? An historical analysis of gay
images in Euro/American societies shows a series of changes from ‘camp’ to ‘gay’
to ‘super-macho’. It is argued that masculinity has been claimed, asserted, or02 Kong (JG/d) 22/2/02 11:49 am Page 32
32 Body and Society Vol. 8 No. 1
re-appropriated by male homosexuals: in terms of the ‘moustached “clone”, the
tattooed “leather man” or “biker”, and more recently the all-American “jock” ’
(Forrest, 1994: 97; cf. Gough, 1989; Humphries, 1985; Segal, 1990). This ‘super-
macho’ look seems to focus entirely on the body, and the male athletic masculine
body in particular is glorified. Of course, I agree with Forrest (1994) that gay men
still behave in many ‘unmanly’ ways and with Gough (1989) that this super-
macho look is more pronounced amongst those gay men who are young, in-the-
scene and living in large cities.
Under this hegemonic gay masculinity, the term ‘golden boy’ seems to be the
euphemism which characterizes most clearly the Chinese ‘gay male body’. The
‘golden boy’ in traditional Chinese literature signifies a young virgin boy who is
innocent, infantile, femininized or androgynous.
With respect to mainstream hegemonic masculinity in a white society, being
Chinese is a subaltern form amongst those subordinate variants. In the gay world,
the ‘super-macho’ man becomes a form of hegemonic gay masculinity while
Chinese gay men, who cannot perform this masculinity, become one of those gay
subordinate variants.
When Golden Boys Meet White Men . . .
The golden boy – infantilized (age), femininized (gender) and golden (race) –
presentation of Chinese gay men seems to appear in many different guises. In his
lifelong vocation of ‘looking for his penis’, Fung argues that Chinese men (and
also Asian men) are always designed to play the passive part (i.e. the role of
‘bottom’, ‘houseboy’ or ‘servant’) in gay pornography:
. . . the problem is not the representation of anal pleasure per se, but rather that the narratives
privilege the penis while always assigning the Asian the role of bottom; Asians and anus are
conflated. (1996: 187)
In the qx magazine (a free, London-based, gay paper), an advertisement for the
Long Yang Club, which claims to be the only ‘oriental’ gay organization in
Britain,6 states:
The Long Yang Club continues to draw Orientals and their admirers to the Star Bar at Heaven
each week from 9 p.m. If you haven’t been then give it a try – but don’t necessarily expect to
get a Chinese take away.
I went to the club and the scene confirmed Fung’s observation. A middle-aged,
white crowd mixed with a young, small, smooth and feminine ‘oriental’ mass. A
half-bald, big bellied, middle-aged, white man, who would hardly find any
‘market’ value in other mainstream gay venues, was hugged by three young,
feminine, ‘oriental’ boys. The man became a star in this ‘exotic’ pub.02 Kong (JG/d) 22/2/02 11:49 am Page 33
The Seduction of the Golden Boy 33
Is this merely due to the fact that Asian bodies are generally smaller than
Western bodies, or does this irreversible pattern across the ocean suggest a rigid
but deep-rooted and structured relationship between the so-called West and East,
the Occident and the Orient, the colonizer and the colonized? Bearing in mind
that the masculine metaphor of the colonial model itself (i.e. the model of the
conquest of, or domination over, the land and people of colonies) reflects upon
the power relations of masculinity and femininity, to what extent does this
metaphor replicate itself in Western–Asian gay relationships? Ultimately, how
does colonization relate to gay identity?
First, it is interesting to note that Asian–white rather than Asian–Asian
relationships dominate the Asian gay population in the London gay world. More
interestingly, my respondents have experienced certain forms of hostility from
other Asians in the gay community. Second, in Asian–white relationships, it is not
uncommon to find that the Asian party is younger, smaller and more feminine
than their Western counterpart. It is almost impossible to find an older, stronger
and more masculine Asian with a younger, slim blond. Third, the Western
partners seem to take for granted that English is always the medium of communi-
cation, even if the Asian counterpart’s command of English is inadequate. Very
few of them seem to have any intention of learning any Asian languages apart
from a few words such as ‘I love you’ or ‘I want to sleep with you’ to facilitate
the ‘exchange’. The Asian party seems to abide by his Western partner’s lifestyle,
very often without feeling oppressed. The white man is seen as the desired image
or the standard against which we compare both ourselves and, often, our brothers.
This ‘native dreaming’ for the West is translated into an ‘imagined and desired
whiteness’ (Fanon, 1970; cf. Manalansan IV, 1993).
Originally discussing the panopticon where prisoners learn to internalize their
supervisors’ inspecting gaze, Foucault’s power/knowledge discourse (1979)
culminates in its effect of ensuring the internalization of specific values by
individuals; this can be related more widely to experiences beyond those of
prisoners. For example, Bartky (1989) has argued that the subjectivity of women
has been formed under a process of social ‘surveillance’ and objectification, just
as in the case of the prisoner who is being watched. Fanon (1970) made a similar
observation of black people and their internalized self-hatred that has resulted
from racism, in the way in which they negatively frame their experiences. Asian
gay men also experience similar disciplinary effects in their lives.
There are a few bars in London which have a substantial Asian clientele (e.g.
Kudos, Village Soho). Most of my London respondents had experienced certain
forms of internal hostility among Asian crowds in London gay bars.
Jeff is now 26 and comes from a rich family. He migrated to England with his02 Kong (JG/d) 22/2/02 11:49 am Page 34
34 Body and Society Vol. 8 No. 1
family when he was 12. He finished his studies in architecture last year and is
currently working as a professional architect. When he was asked about his
impressions of Hong Kong gay men in London, he gave the following comment:
. . . a lot of them try to be something, they try too hard to be something, you know, the best
dressed, the best whatsoever, really . . . that’s why they tend to be aggressive or even look down
on you . . . perhaps in fact if they could be more comfortable and relaxed the whole situation
would be much better. . . . Sometimes I did feel this kind of hostility from them, and so the next
time I went to Kudos, I would smile at them and say hello just to see how they would react.
Jeff’s witty comment is confirmed by another respondent who had also
experienced this kind of difficulty:
I don’t like going to Kudos. You know, there are a lot of Asians, some of whom are my ‘hello-
goodbye’ friends. I always feel uncomfortable. I remember I was with them once and an Asian
guy came to the bar. They commented on him even though they didn’t know him. They
commented on everything about him, his face, his body, his clothes, blah blah blah. If he was
with a handsome white guy, we would say ‘stone the bitch’. . . . I joked about him as well. But
then I suddenly realized that they would do the same thing to me behind my back.
This internalized self-hatred reflects the men’s irrational jealousy and envy, as
if any Asian newcomer poses a potential threat, becoming the ‘exotic trophy’
usually consumed by the white clientele. Moreover, this negative identification
shows their predicament about eroticising the ‘same’ body. Under the disciplinary
effect of the ‘phallus is white’ logic, the Asian body is conflated with the feminine
body. Leo is now 40 and migrated to England in the early 1980s by working as a
nurse. He said:
Two Malaysian friends told me that if two Asian men had sex, they were really like two lesbians
making love. I agreed with them. I only fancied qweilos . . . well, now I also fancy Chinese but
I still haven’t ‘tried’ . . .
So how and in what ways do Hong Kong gay men desire a qweilo (i.e. a
Westerner)? When my respondents were asked to talk about their desire for
Westerners, they gave similar comments about Western bodies such as:
I find qweilos very attractive, you know, those facial features, perfect tits and butts, bulbous
biceps. (Martin, 27, student)
They are more beautiful and nicer. And you can see many different types. (Jonathan, 33, student;
and Nelson, 30, freelancer)
My ideal is the butch type. I am obviously looking for masculinity, someone who is masculine,
but can be sensitive and romantic at the same time. I prefer, well, hunky, really. I don’t know,
maybe I’ve been subjected too much to those images presented in magazines. (Jeff, 26, architect)
Alan is 36 and is a professional dancer. He lives in Hong Kong but he spends
six months of every year travelling and living overseas. His sexual identification
has always been with Westerners.02 Kong (JG/d) 22/2/02 11:49 am Page 35
The Seduction of the Golden Boy 35
I prefer qweilos . . . maybe because my first romance was with a qweilo. When I was young, I
was very curious about qweilos. . . . When I was at school, my English wasn’t so good. I thought
I could learn something from qweilos which I couldn’t learn from my family, school or friends.
Then I went in that direction. I was very lucky as I met a lot of qweilos who were very, very
nice to me. I was very happy. I met a lot of friends and they taught me a lot of things. I thought
it was a good start for me. . . . Well, I like travelling and I like meeting different kinds of people
. . . but for sex, I mainly prefer qweilos. I think they are more direct and open. I quite like
Western romance.
What is Western romance?
Well, Chinese romance, it is more reserved. A lot of things you don’t talk about, so you need
more time to communicate. But Western romance is different. It’s more direct and passionate . . .
Westerners symbolically represent sophistication and modernity as reflected
by their skin colour, their body, their social status, their language, their lifestyle
and so forth. Westerners occupied a privileged position in many pre- and post-
war Asian countries and colonies. Those who came to London were all brought
up in Hong Kong during the 1970s or the 1980s, when Hong Kong had started
to undergo modernization at a great pace. The Western body has become the
criterion of physical aesthetics, and it is often glorified and reinforced through
‘glamorous’ Hollywood movies. The language these Westerners speak, usually
English, is the official language of Hong Kong and is thus automatically perceived
as an asset for a Chinese person who speaks it, whether they are expatriates,
government officials, businessmen or tourists, their social status or education, and
thus the economic implication, guarantee their ‘market value’ within the gay
population. Last but not least, their lifestyle is alleged to signify a series of liberal
values, which are ‘direct’, ‘passionate’, ‘advanced’ and ‘free’ as opposed to the
‘conservative’ and ‘backward-looking’ Chinese cultures. Thus, even if they are
middle-aged or elderly or physically unattractive, they still have substantial assets
with which to attract young men. Racism and colonialism seem to be replicated
within structures of desire.
Apart from two respondents (Jeff and Leo), all the others came to England
initially to study. They were all granted a student visa, which permitted them to
stay in England for a limited period of time. Most of them wanted to continue
living here but they struggled to gain residence. As immigration laws in England
have always been strict, most of them found it very difficult to remain here. These
respondents have given up the idea of migration and returned to Hong Kong after
completing their studies. A few, however, succeeded in staying. These people had
made a conscious choice to use their sexuality as a means of social mobility.
Martin and Nelson are two such examples that I now wish to discuss.
Martin is now 27 and has been living in England for nearly ten years. He met02 Kong (JG/d) 22/2/02 11:49 am Page 36
36 Body and Society Vol. 8 No. 1
an older British man (Michael) in Hong Kong and came to England to live as a
‘houseboy’. Two years later, he split up with Michael. Since then, Martin has been
going out with a German man (William), who is 15 years older than him. Through
this relationship, he has gained an EU passport and has been granted the right of
citizenship in any EU country. He is now studying painting at college, but for
him this acts as a ‘safety valve’, to ensure his social mobility:
I have been living in England for about seven or eight years. I met a British guy called Michael
in Hong Kong and I came with him to London. In the first year, I did nothing apart from stay
at home, shop, cook and sleep. . . . Then two friends from Hong Kong came to London to study
design, and I asked them if I could study art or design or something. They said why not? Then
I applied to a private school for an elementary course on photography. . . . After I finished that,
I wanted to study for a degree, well, I didn’t know what to study; in fact, I simply wanted to
stay here a bit longer.
After a few trials, Martin ended up at a famous college of art and has been
studying painting there until now. As for his present relationship, he says:
I have known William for many years. In fact, I met him in Hong Kong. . . . When I was going
to break up with Michael, I talked to him a lot. William came to London to visit me very often.
Michael always criticized what I did, he sort of fathered me, and then we spilt up . . .
But with William, we had some problems at first. He had a German boyfriend who was 20 years
younger than him. So I couldn’t stay with him. He rented a flat for me . . . but I always had to
hide away. But you know, we couldn’t escape. One day, William was driving his car and his
boyfriend was following us on his motorbike. . . . his boyfriend then suggested they live
separately and so we stayed together.
That’s why I want to finish my degree . . . you know, the higher the educational level you can
attain, the further you can go. . . . For me, even when I can’t depend on others, I still have my
degree. I can still work but only if I really need to work, I mean if I really need to work. I don’t
think I need to.
Now I normally go to Germany every weekend. We usually have dinner at home and then go
out afterwards.
Boldly referring to himself as a ‘potato queen’ and a ‘size queen’,7 Martin is clearly
aware of his object of desire. He has always sought a father figure, which for him,
symbolically represents maturity, economic stability and material satisfaction.
His small and skinny body has always contrasted with the bodies he finds
sexually desirable, which are usually hunky and big. However, he is well aware
of his own ‘exotic cultural capital’8 which helps him to benefit from the white
fetishization of coloured bodies. Consciously controlling his body, he knows how
to fit into the white ‘gaze’.
I like older guys, maybe I have always been looking for a father type, maybe I want someone
to take care of me, I don’t know. . . . In the gay world, your body is very important. If you are
too hunky, you look too similar to them. They don’t like you. If you dye your hair, you look
too funky. You should keep your body slim and look cute.02 Kong (JG/d) 22/2/02 11:49 am Page 37
The Seduction of the Golden Boy 37
Nelson is now 30 and is a freelance media worker living in London. In contrast
to Martin, Nelson rejects the label of ‘potato queen’ as he finds it derogatory. He
labels a typical Hong Kong gay man as a ‘sissy’, a ‘bitchy’ and ‘campy’ man,
whom he despises. He proudly claims that he is simply a man who could love
another man.
Typical Hong Kong gay men are camp, very bitchy and are too concerned with their appear-
ance . . . that’s why I find here (London) is more natural. . . . I do find difficulty in identifying
myself with Hong Kong gay men because I am not a campy and bitchy gay man. I am a man
who loves another man!
If Nelson consciously rejects the white fetishization of ‘the Orient’, why did he
come to London in the first place?
I was so suffocated by my work and, more importantly, I could not come out in Hong Kong.
I then decided to quit my job and came to London to study a course on media. I wanted to
throw everything away. It might sound a bit silly, but I wanted to find a relationship. I wanted
to have a simple life.
After a one-year relationship with a British man, Nelson ended up with another
British man (Paul), who is 12 years older than him, and they have been living
together for three years. But Nelson seems to have completely given up his idea
of passionate love and only seeks a companion.
I think my most remarkable relationship was with my very best friend. Maybe at that time I
was young, I had passion. I loved that person so much. . . . But after him, I lost the passion to
love. . . . I can’t really love anyone anymore. My relationships with these two British boyfriends
are, well, I think, not love. They are simply a relationship, or a companionship.
Living in London, on the one hand gives him the freedom to fully realize his
sexuality, but, on the other, it poses a serious challenge to him in relation to his
minority status. He said he was a typical colonial man. It was not until he came
to London that he started to rethink his own cultural identity and discover the
close relationship between race and sexuality.
I have always disliked China. I even rejected my own country. . . . I think I am quite a typical
colonial Hong Kong man. . . . I guess I have changed my ideas since I came to London. When
my own culture was despised or looked down upon by my British friends, I started to rebel
against this humiliation. . . . But then I realized that I know nothing about China, and I don’t
know how to defend my own country. . . . Is Chinese medicine good? What is I-Ching? In what
ways do Confucian thoughts influence me?
Race and sexuality are parallel, like the film M. Butterfly, it talks about the white fetish for an
oriental man. . . . My present boyfriend, he is 43. . . . I have spent a lot of time trying to under-
stand the meanings or motives behind his behaviour. . . . So, there is definitely a cultural conflict
between us. . . .Well, it’s also present in sexual practices – I like fucking and being fucked. When
I was in Hong Kong, I was mainly on top. Well, Paul doesn’t like to be fucked, so I take that
role.02 Kong (JG/d) 22/2/02 11:49 am Page 38
38 Body and Society Vol. 8 No. 1
With his present boyfriend, after the first year of living together, they applied
for the right to stay in England on the basis of his same-sex relationship. The
Home Office rejected the application but the couple have appealed the decision.
In his present situation, he cannot work. This ambiguous status seems to have
made it more difficult for him to negotiate sexual practices and impose his own
limits on the exchange, and it seems to have led him to play a sort of ‘houseboy’
role, involving the tasks of cooking and gardening. He is quite frustrated about
his present situation:
I am now at a most uncertain moment in my life. In front of me is an empty land. Although
someone is with me, I think I have lost any vision. . . . I don’t know how to function in this
society. Well, I could be a typist or technician, earning a living is not a problem. Even if I don’t
work, I can still live here. But I want to find a position for myself.
I agree with Fung (1996) that there is nothing wrong with ‘passivity’ or the
image of ‘servitude’ per se. The problem seems to lie in the fact that whenever the
‘East’ meets the ‘West’, the ‘East’ always adopts the role of a servant. The absence
of other possible scenarios seems to suggest that the uniformity reflects real social
hierarchy, economic inequality and political domination. The gay community can
be a place of sexual freedom and comfort, but it is also ‘a site of racial, cultural,
and sexual alienation sometimes more pronounced than that in a straight society’
(Fung, 1996: 190).
Newly Emerging Postcolonial Gay Politics
The problems of the intersection between race and sexuality, that are commonly
experienced by Asian ‘sexual dissidents’ who live in Euro/American countries,
seem to have caught the attention of some newly emerging groups of the Asian
gay diaspora. An emergent assertion of ‘gayness’ among some (middle-class) Asian
young men tends to reject the ‘houseboy’ scenario as the only means of entering
the Western homosexual world and also refuses to accept the logic that ‘the phallus
is white’ by eroticizing the yellow male body. Although the awareness of sensitive
issues involved with inter-racial relationships sometimes remains at a rhetorical
rather than a practical level, some progress has been made which can be seen in
some independent films and videos as well as in academic studies.9
For example, arguing that gay pornography is an important but easily forgot-
ten site of political struggle, the Canadian Chinese writer Fung (1996) suggests
that we have to shift our emphasis from the representation of images to the actual
appropriation and control of production and distribution of them. He thus calls
for independent gay Asian pornographers to produce pieces of work that treat
Asians as both subjects and objects of desire.
Likewise, a number of independent films and videos by the Asian gay diaspora02 Kong (JG/d) 22/2/02 11:49 am Page 39
The Seduction of the Golden Boy 39
can be found. This group has been exploring stereotypes and the relationship
between race and sexuality (e.g. Toc Storee, Ming-Yuen S. Ma, USA, 1992; The
Queen’s Cantonese Conversational Course, Wayne Yung, Canada, 1998; China
Dolls, Tony Ayres, Australia, 1997; Forever Bottom, Nguyen Tan Hoang, USA,
1999; and Yellow Fever, Raymond Yeung, UK, 1998). For example, Yellow Fever
is a witty portrayal of the gay Chinese subculture in a white-dominated society.
It tells the story of a Chinese gay man Monty, who has lived in London for many
years. Monty has always desperately sought a ‘white knight’ until one day he is
confronted and tempted by his new ‘yellow’ neighbour, Jai Ming. The film
describes Monty’s painful struggle to overcome a deeply internalized sense of
self-hatred that is the result of colonialism, and his attempt to eroticize about a
yellow male body.
Furthermore, a book called Asian American Sexualities was published in 1996
in the United States. The book is claimed to be the first book which discusses
racial identities and sexual differences from an interdisciplinary Asian American
perspective (Leong, 1996).
Of my own respondents, Jeff is now going out with an American who is 32
and studying for an MBA in the United States. Although Jeff knows that he some-
times exhibits a quality of dependency, he wants a more equal relationship. Being
a young gay man with a well-built body and economic independence, Jeff is
confident about his possession of ‘embodied capital’ which allows him to bargain:
I am not very happy with my boyfriend at the moment because he never phones me. It’s always
me who has to make the effort to phone him. I know he is busy with his examinations, but that
is not an excuse. In fact, when I phoned him today, he had just got back from a party but he
was so impatient that he only talked with me for just a few minutes. I then hung up and wrote
him a long e-mail. At the beginning, I said, ‘It’s not right, but it’s OK, I would make it anyway.’
You know, I can really relate to this song. Anyway, I am prepared. If he tells me that he wants
to split up, I will accept it. I simply want to know the answer. I love him of course, but if he
makes me feel so ‘cheap’, I can find no point in going out with him. I don’t mind finding another
man and I am sure I could do so.
Conclusion
Hong Kong gay men who are living in London do not usually have to fight for
their very existence as gay men since they are virtually free from the family and
other constraints that they would probably encounter in Hong Kong. They thus
enjoy the more established British gay subculture. Due to the limited articulation
of an Asian consciousness and the relative absence of alternative scripts at both a
political and an academic level, however, Hong Kong or Asian gay men suffer from
cultural under-representation in the white dominated British society. Within the
gay media and gay community, a ‘silent golden boy’ becomes the dominant image.02 Kong (JG/d) 22/2/02 11:49 am Page 40
40 Body and Society Vol. 8 No. 1
Hong Kong Gay Men in Hong Kong: Family/Space/Resistance
In contrast to the London respondents, Hong Kong gay men living in Hong Kong
tend to struggle for a gay identity within the neo-Confucian family institution.
Instead of using a ‘visible’ and ‘confrontational’ politics in a constitutional sense,
Hong Kong gay embodied identities usually take the form of micro-resistance
against familial limitation, societal domination and spatial constraint; this allows
them to strive for sexual freedom and create their own space for social interaction
(Ho, 1997; Kong, 2000; cf. de Certeau, 1988). For example, they have devised
tactics to resist the iron laws of marriage and family continuation. They practically
configure and reconfigure their sexuality and desires under the Chinese culture and
spatial limits. Instead of creating a ‘visible’ queer space, they rather ‘queer’ public
spaces for their purposes of social interaction and their expressions of sexual desire.
Some of them even occupy strategic positions in the media industry. They shift
their attention away from the political arena and devote themselves to cultural
representation to express their gayness. As in the case of other Asian countries (e.g.
Thailand; see Jackson, 1995), gayness in Hong Kong is a cultural but not a political
matter, and issues of gender and culture, rather than sexuality and politics,
dominate the lives of Hong Kong gay men.
The cultural and non-political nature of Hong Kong gay men seems to come
from the centrality of the family institution under the colonial administration and
spatial constraints. First, Hong Kong’s polity was constituted by an appointed
governor, assisted by many bureaucrats and advisory bodies. This bureaucratic
polity dominated the political sector of the colony but was largely exempt from
interference by social and economic forces in the system. The non-intervention
policy of the government functioned perfectly in relation to the Chinese society
at the receiving end. Characterized as utilitarian familism, Chinese society is
considered as ‘an inward-looking, self-contained and atomistic society with
apolitical orientations and low potentials for political mobilization’ (Lau, 1982:
68).10 Although Hong Kong went through a lot of political changes in the 1990s,
the relationship between society and government does not seem to have changed
much. For example, the paramount goal in ruling Hong Kong has always been
to maintain Hong Kong as ‘the capital of freewheeling capital’, whether this
was achieved through Britain’s colonialism and de-colonizing strategies of non-
intervention, or China’s nationalist promise of ‘one-country-two-systems’
(Chow, 1998; cf. Wu, 1997; Yahuda, 1996). After the handover, the structure of
the government seems to change ‘technically’ from the British to the Chinese
influence (for example, an appointed governor is replaced by a designated Chief
Executive). Moreover, Hong Kong people still perceive the family as a major02 Kong (JG/d) 22/2/02 11:49 am Page 41
The Seduction of the Golden Boy 41
source of social security. Rather than making demands on the government, they
tend to turn towards their family or relatives for help.
Second, the scarcity of physical space translates into extraordinarily high priced
land. Together with the state regulation on housing, this confines most Hong Kong
people (especially those who are single, young or economically deprived) to
the pattern of family residence. This spatial constraint also guarantees efficient
communication amongst family members, even though they might live apart.
The centrality of the institution of the family materializes the notion of
‘relational self’ – how one defines oneself relationally with respect to others
within the pattern of a hierarchical society (Fei, 1991; Ketcham, 1987; Lau and
Kuan, 1988). It makes marriage and the continuation of the family line more
pertinent for Hong Kong men. It also overemphasizes ‘face’ and ‘public image’,
which leads to a ‘shame’ culture,11 operated under the gossip system but mediated
perfectly by the high density of this information society.
Lover/ Tongzhi
It is in this context that gay relationships in Hong Kong can be understood. In
Hong Kong, three major forms of gay relationships are dominant: a substantial
number of Chinese gay men who go out solely with Westerners; a group of
Chinese men who only go out with other Chinese men, some of whom went out
with Westerners before but who have consciously decided to change their prefer-
ence due to cautious and practical considerations; and, finally, as Hong Kong and
China have drawn closer over the past decade, some Hong Kong gay men have
started to go back to Mainland China for their sexual gratification.
As discussed in the last section, both the symbolic meaning of sophistication
and modernity that Westerners embody and the social and economic privileged
positions that they attain in Hong Kong are attractive to some gay men, especially
those who are young or economically deprived. By using their sexual contacts
with (usually older) Westerners, young gay men are able to win entry into the
Western world. The will to ‘hook up’ with Westerners in order to seek social
mobility is intensified by the spatial constraints, the patterns of family residence
and issues of de-colonization.
If compulsory heterosexuality is not necessarily realized in practice, neither is
hegemonic Western masculinity. There is a group of my respondents who have
never fancied Westerners. For example, Adam is 47 and is a publisher. He studied
in the United States in the 1970s but his sexual desires have always been directed
towards the Chinese:
Well, I may take more than one glance at some qweilo stars such as Brad Pitt, but I would
definitely go out with a Chinese man, I like Chinese men very much.02 Kong (JG/d) 22/2/02 11:49 am Page 42
42 Body and Society Vol. 8 No. 1
David is 43 and he is the boss of a Chinese restaurant. He is very much influ-
enced by Western culture, as is reflected in his tastes in fashion, his manner of
speech and his lifestyle. However, his sexual identification has always been with
Asians:
I have never been attracted to qweilos, I don’t know why, I have only had one or two very brief
encounters with qweilos. I have always been attracted to Asians.
My results do not support the argument that older Chinese gay men were all
attracted to Westerners when they were young due to the effects of colonialism,
nor that young gay men lost their interest in Westerners with the handover of Hong
Kong to China. Postcolonial gay desire does not seem to follow this simple logic.
Although there are some Hong Kong gay men who have never fancied
Westerners, what is interesting is that some had gone out with Westerners before
but then stopped doing so. Their reasons for this related to their struggle to keep
the peace within the family, and their unwillingness to disclose their sexual
identity publicly.
Matthew is one such example. He is 38 and runs a fashion business. He is an
American mixed Chinese who was born and brought up in Hong Kong. He used
to go out with Westerners before but then he stopped doing it.
I went out with qweilos before, but I stopped. There are many reasons for this. First of all, they
are not responsible people. . . . Second, if they fancy you, they’ll do something very romantic
but crazy. But if they lose interest in you, they’ll change completely. This is because they will,
sooner or later, go back to their home country. They can’t stay in Hong Kong forever, but I
can’t migrate to their home country either. . . . Moreover, cultural differences and communi-
cation are, after all, major problems. As Chinese people, we have our own way of dealing with
our parents, but if you tell them that you give money to your parents every month, they will
laugh at you and say that you are stupid: ‘Why do you have to give money to your parents?
Your parents look very healthy, why don’t they work? Why do you have to live with them?
Why do you need to get married and why do you need to have children? Why do you do this
and why do you do that?’ Why why why! Come on, there is no answer!
The awfulness of going out with a Westerner can be reduced if one doesn’t live
in Hong Kong. When Jonathan (33) studied in London (he has gone back to Hong
Kong), he found it easier to date Westerners:
In Hong Kong, I would find a Chinese man, because when you are on the street, it does not
look so strange. Like my first relationship [which happened in Hong Kong], when I was with
him [a Jewish American], I found it very embarrassing as I couldn’t understand what he said,
and also, maybe I was too concerned about what others thought about me, I felt very uneasy. I
would think that others were wondering why I was hanging out with a foreigner. Well when I
am here [London], and there are many qweilos, it is more natural, and I can’t be seen by my
friends, my family, etc. . . . Being gay is so different and difficult in Hong Kong. I am close to
my family, they care about me and they admire me. . . . Even though we are close, we can’t really
talk at that level. I won’t let them know. I don’t know how to explain to them. . . . It’s like giving02 Kong (JG/d) 22/2/02 11:49 am Page 43
The Seduction of the Golden Boy 43
birth. A woman tells you that giving birth is really painful but how could I know? How could
I understand her pain?
These two cases reveal most of the anxieties commonly felt by my respondents
in telling their families about their sexuality. They fear those disciplinary Chinese
values, such as filial piety, which define a good son as obedient. They are vulner-
able to the overwhelming power of the ‘iron law’ of marriage and the regulatory
obligation for a son to continue the family’s line. They are afraid of the idea of
shame that being gay would bring upon the family. And they don’t know how to
defend themselves against the prejudiced view that being gay is abnormal,
perverted and deviant.
The spatial constraints, patterns of family residence and economic affluence of
Hong Kong all contribute to tourism to other neighbouring countries. Due to the
economic reforms and open door policy in China since the late 1970s, many Hong
Kong people have started to go to China to visit their relatives or for a holiday.
After the Sino-British Declaration in 1984, economic ties between Hong Kong
and China have become very close. A lot of Hong Kong businessmen have started
to set up businesses in China. Single Hong Kong men who then marry a woman,
as well as married Hong Kong men who have a second wife in China, have
become common in these past few years. A current heated debate in Hong Kong
surrounds the issue of the legal rights of those children who were born in
Mainland China and the possibility of accommodating them in Hong Kong.
Stuart is now 35 and comes from a very working-class family. He is a manual
worker and also an amateur dancer. Since he perceives a huge gap between his
work and his personal interests, and is also very frustrated by the highly commer-
cial gay world, he found it difficult to find a partner in Hong Kong. He then went
to Mainland China, where he met his first love.
I think I found it quite difficult to find a partner. The gap between my work and my interests
is too big. I have always been a manual worker. My colleagues are thus very working-class
straight men. Well, now, most of my colleagues are villagers or new immigrants from Mainland
China. They are quite old, about 40-ish and they are all married. I have never found a gay man
on the construction site. . . .
A few years ago, I met a guy from Shengchun. He accepted me but he was not [gay] . . . there
was an economic reason. We went out together for about three years. That was the first time I
had a relationship. You know, we walked hand in hand. It was romantic. In 1994, I split up with
him. . . . I couldn’t afford to pay for my own living, so how could I feed him! He was very
young, ten years younger than me. He was also a dancer. . . . Money was a factor, as I bought
things for him. But I also loved him, you know. I think we both needed a companion. . . . We
are still friends, and that’s enough for me. It was really hard though. You know, I had to
commute between Hong Kong and China all of the time.
Due to the close proximity of Hong Kong and China, gay tourism in Mainland02 Kong (JG/d) 22/2/02 11:49 am Page 44
44 Body and Society Vol. 8 No. 1
China is a new way in which Hong Kong gay men can channel their sexual
gratification. These relationships not only reflect the political economy of the
complicated interactions between Hong Kong and China, but also imply the
vulnerability of young (gay) men in Mainland China and even in many develop-
ing countries in Southeast Asia.
In contrast to their London brothers, Hong Kong gay men who are living in
Hong Kong seek to define themselves relationally with others within the patterns
of a family-centred hierarchical society. Instead of using confrontational politics
in a constitutional sense, they devise various tactics of microscopic resistance
against societal domination, spatial constraints and family pressure. No matter
whether their partners are Westerners, Hong Kongese or Chinese, they struggle
for a ‘suitable’ gay identity that can be reconciled within the neo-Confucian
family institution.
Conclusion
Although we would laugh at the official voice of Mainland China, which endlessly
protests that homosexuality is a result of ‘Western decadence’, ignoring China’s
own rich homo-erotic traditions, I think we cannot simply say that the
‘oppressed’ are now being heard. Compulsory heterosexuality and homophobia
are still in operation, and are still oppressive in specific societies, especially in
Asian countries. I think we should acknowledge Hong Kong gay embodied
identities as a ‘silent’ resistance to sexual norms, but the problem of how to
reconcile postcolonial identities within a family institution remains an important
issue for most Chinese gay men. A new gay politics which, on the one hand, is
sensitive to the continuing existence of Chinese culture and traditions and, on the
other hand, is aware of the universal rhetoric and styles involved in the global
tendency of ‘Euro-Americanization’ of gay identities, should be sought.
Moreover, Western gay men are always the ‘origins’ by which the whole
universe of ‘gayness’ is defined. Postcolonial gay men, say Hong Kong gay men
who are living in Western countries, should be understood in their own right. A
constant critique of the intertwining relationship between the hierarchy of
different gay identities should be made.
Notes
1. The close relationship between identity and the body needs clarification. The body has become
increasingly significant in sociological analysis (Connell, 1998; Grosz, 1994; Shilling, 1993; Turner,
1984). Under the various forces of deconstruction over the past few decades, the body becomes crucial02 Kong (JG/d) 22/2/02 11:49 am Page 45
The Seduction of the Golden Boy 45
to a modern sense of self-identity and is recognized as being important to the corporeal experiences of
the ‘other’ – women’s bodies, gay and lesbian bodies, and ethnic bodies thus becoming central to
modern philosophical and sociological analysis. Throughout this article, I use the terms ‘identity’ or
‘body’ interchangeably, and sometimes use the term ‘embodied identity’ to signify the embodied nature
of identity.
2. The interview times ranged from one and a half hours to three hours. The age of my interviewees
ranged from 16 to 48 and their educational level ranged from secondary to university level. In order to
protect the anonymity of the interviewees, pseudonyms have been used throughout the article, and
some biographical data have been altered or withheld to ensure the privacy of the interviewees. All
biographical data cited refer to the time of interview. I understand that the self-identities of Hong Kong
gay men are quite different from those of Hong Kong lesbians. Due to time constraints and the fact
that there is very little literature on lesbianism in Hong Kong, I have limited myself to discussing Hong
Kong gay men.
3. The term ‘tongzhi’ literally means comrade. It was originally used by the Chinese national father
(Sun Yi Xian) who encouraged Chinese people to fight against the imperialist regime of the early 20th
century: he said ‘revolution has not been successful, comrades should fight against it until the end’. It
is believed that the term was first appropriated as a synonym for gays, lesbians and other sexual minori-
ties after the First Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, held in 1991, was referred to as the Tongzhi Film
Festival. Without emphasizing any kind of sexual orientation, the term seems to bypass other problems
of terminology involved in the use of words such as homosexual (read ‘medical inclination’), gay (read
‘Western construction’) or even queer (read ‘Western deconstruction’). It is also because of the fact that
the term tongzhi denotes no direct sexual connotation that most Hong Kong gay men feel comfortable
in using it.
4. The conception of masculinity has come under attack from many different academic disciplines
as well as political forces. First, the growth of feminist research on gender and sex roles since the late
1960s has critically examined the male/female dichotomy and provides new agendas with which to
understand gender (di Leonardo and Lancaster, 1996; Grosz, 1994; Laqueur, 1990). Second, the confla-
tion of masculinity with heterosexuality has been severely criticized by lesbian and gay academics as
well as activists since the late 1960s (Segal, 1990; Sedgwick, 1990). Third, historians, anthropologists,
ethnographers and postcolonial theorists provide valuable materials with which to dismantle a unifying
but Eurocentric notion of masculinity. A more recent understanding of masculinity can be gained by
recognizing its global dimension (Altman, 1996; Berger et al., 1995; Connell, 1993; Cornwall and
Lindisfarne, 1994; Weston, 1993).
5. The terms ‘Asians’ and the recent colonial language of ‘Orientals’ are used interchangeably
throughout this article to refer to those people who are originally from Southeast Asia, which include
places such as China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, etc. rather than those
from the Middle East as discussed by Edward Said (1978) in Orientalism. Conversely, the term ‘West’
mainly denotes Western and Southern European and Northern American (thereafter Euro/American)
countries. In discussing the intertwining relationship between the binary of the ‘East’ and the ‘West’, I
am aware of the specificity of social, cultural, economic and political differences by nationality under
these totalizing constructs. For example, Hong Kong and Thai gay male bodies are both treated as
‘exotic’ under the fantasy of some white gay men, but drag queens, one of the most significant features
of the Thai gay scene (i.e. the ‘lady boy’ or ‘kathoey’, see Jackson, 1995), have never been developed in
Hong Kong on the same scale. Likewise, the politicized subcultures and identity politics of the
‘Western’ gay movement that are so pertinent in Britain or in San Francisco have never been material-
ized in Holland, another ‘Western’ country (Duyvendak, 1996).
6. There are many similar gay organizations in most Euro-American countries, the aims of which
are to provide venues for Asian gay men to meet non-Asian (particularly white) men.
7. ‘Potato queen’ is a term coined to refer to those Asian men who are predominantly sexually02 Kong (JG/d) 22/2/02 11:49 am Page 46
46 Body and Society Vol. 8 No. 1
interested in Western or Caucasian men. Conversely, ‘rice queen’ refers to Western/Caucasian men who
are predominantly interested in Asian men. ‘Sticky rice queen’ refers to those Asian men who solely
go out with Asian men. ‘Size queen’ refers to those gay men who adore men with a large sexual organ.
8. Extending Bourdieu’s notion of class (Bourdieu, 1986, 1989; see also Skeggs, 1997), I use the term
‘exotic cultural capital’ to refer to Asian gay men’s possession of cultural capital (e.g. body figure,
consumption lifestyle, language use, etc.). How much of this capital they acquire strongly affects their
struggle for a better position within the overall white and gay social space.
9. For evidence of the United States and Canada, see Leong (1996), Fung (1995) and Eng and Hom
(1998). For Australia, see Jackson and Sullivan (1999). Relatively speaking, there has hardly been any
work done in Britain at either an intellectual or a political level. This may be due to tight immigration
laws and the transient nature of the majority of the Chinese population in Britain.
10. The economic prosperity and political stability Hong Kong has always enjoyed is accounted for
by the model of the minimally integrated socio-political system developed by Lau Siu-kai (Lau, 1982).
In a nutshell, the model is a coexistence of a secluded bureaucratic polity and a Chinese society with
limited linkages between them. Such a society was functional for colonialism and modernization. It is
this ‘managerial colonialism’ that has provided opportunities for an apathetic culture to develop to
perfection (Law, 1998).
11. Centred on the notion of a relational self, Chinese society generates a clear-cut distinction
between the public and private selves (Chan, 1994). This distinction between public world and private
realities over-emphasizes ‘face’ and ‘image’, which leads to a ‘shame culture’; in contrast, the ‘guilt
culture’ of some Western societies centres around the notion of a confessional self as derived from the
Judeo-Christian tradition (Jackson, 1995).
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