China, Olympics and the gay scene

[Posted by Jan Wijngaarden on msm-asia Google Group, 25 August 2008]

Chinese gay bars open, activism slowed during Olympics

Washington Blade, 15, August 2008

The first paragraph of the Aug. 9 entry on John Amaechi’s blog could have been written by any Olympic tourist guilty of staying up too late to take in the local culture.

“I had to wake up at 6 a.m. this morning, which was not fun considering I had been up until 3 a.m., watching the opening ceremony and hanging out at ‘Destination’ again,” he wrote. “I have to say that it got busy very late — I am officially too old for bars that close at 5 a.m.”

Only Amaechi isn’t just any tourist, and Destination isn’t just any bar. Last year, Amaechi made worldwide headlines when he became the first NBA player to come out as gay, three years after retiring from professional basketball. And Destination is the most popular, contemporary gay bar in Beijing, which some activists had fretted would face closure as the Chinese government tried to strictly manage the city’s image during the Olympic Games.

Now, Amaechi, who once feared being ostracized in the sports world, is in Beijing to broadcast Olympic basketball games for the BBC. And the party at Destination continues, drawing a mix of Chinese citizens, ex-pats, and tourists.

“It is a sizeable club, very pleasant staff, which is not a given in every gay bar,” Amaechi told the Blade.

Amaechi noted a lack of racial diversity — “Not many black people about in Beijing outside of the athletes” — and a lack of dancing on weeknights, but otherwise found Destination to be similar to many high-end Western gay bars.

Destination’s Edmund Yang confirmed that the club, which recently expanded from one floor to two, is open and thriving with the Olympics underway.

“So far we have seen more foreign visitors coming to Destination,” he said. “We had a large crowd on the dance floor on Aug. 9, Saturday. The highlight of the night was most of them singing along to the chorus of ‘YMCA’ when I played this oldie towards the end of my set.”

But while gay nightlife has continued in Beijing during the Olympics, Chinese activists acknowledge that the Games have impacted their work.

“There are many new regulations on security, such as Internet censorship, travel, migrant workers in Beijing,” said Bin Xu, who leads an organization for lesbian and bisexual women based in the Chinese capital. “We have to be careful with our work to avoid intriguing safety concerns.”
The heightened security and general restrictions in place during the Games make activist work almost impossible, agreed Damien Lu, a volunteer with Aibai Culture & Education Center, which operates two gay centers and a gay library.

“Most LGBT groups, particularly those in Beijing and surrounding areas, have completely suspended their work during the Olympic period, partly because of logistic reasons (transportation problems, etc), partly because the Beijing public security has become hysterical and closed down many entertainment venues, gay or otherwise,” said Lu, who lives in Los Angeles but travels to China frequently for gay rights work and maintains constant contact with activists there.

“Since many of these groups’ work consists mainly of conducting outreach at these venues, it effectively made it impossible for them to continue,” he said.

[Rest of the article is found here]