Four years, two ntents: a gay Che uple's journey for a surrogate son | Parents and parentg | The Guardian

Contents:

• GAY CHA
• THE HIDN LIV OF GAY MEN CHA
• FOUR YEARS, TWO NTENTS: A GAY CHE UPLE'S JOURNEY FOR A SURROGATE SON
• GAY VILLAGE
• GAY MOSW MOSW CY GUI
• THE 5 BEST MOSW GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS MOSW

GAY CHA

I’ll take you to see the place where the gays go to play mahjong. I’m here to take a tour of s gay scene and 29-year-old Ah Tao is my gui.

There has been some excellent rearch to the emergence of gay and lbian inti Cha, cludg how the have been shaped by ro-Amerin ias of “gay sensibily” and characterised by “dividualy, difference, sophistitn, liberatn and morny”. One 2018 study tailed gay bars Shanghai that rivalled those of any wtern pal, the anisatn of “pri” events and the tense ntexts which “queer” film ftivals and wir cultural productn and activism occur the face of ntued regulatn by the thorarian state. Back 2009-10, I spent 12 months studyg Mandar Che Haan and ma iends lol gay muni.

THE HIDN LIV OF GAY MEN CHA

Inspired by those experienc, for the past eight years, I have been rryg out rearch wh gay men the regn and, 2018, pleted a PhD this explorg gay liv Haan.

FOUR YEARS, TWO NTENTS: A GAY CHE UPLE'S JOURNEY FOR A SURROGATE SON

I wanted to fd out how gay liv are lived on the margs of global LGBT polics and activism, away om ci imaged as smopolan centr of morny.

My rearch explor how gay men Haan unrstand themselv, build muni and negotiate the prsur to nform to the heterosexual life script of marriage and reproductn. I looked to how gay liv are figured out everyday teractns, how they are shaped by the spac which they unfold and how this plays out over time.

Hidn gay spac. “When we get there, don’t say any gay stuff, ” Ah Tao warns me as we approach a shop the cut-out rner of a buildg at an tersectn wh an even narrower alley. When I first beme volved gay muni Haan back 2009, I was taken by iends to the sole gay bar Haikou, the provcial pal.

GAY VILLAGE

I later learned that the petg dynamics of centraly and obscury are characteristic of gay spac Haan.

GAY MOSW MOSW CY GUI

This abandoned hotel Sanya was the former lotn of a gay bar. In the island’s biggt ci, Haikou and Sanya, there are gay bars and tablished cisg areas certa parks, centrally loted yet variably beyond the view of the wir public.

Haikou’s current gay bar is accsed by climbg through a wdow on the fifth floor of an ageg tower block, out onto a balny, past a long dried-up swimmg pool and down a stg stairse. In Sanya, the well trodn pathways that criss-cross a bamboo grove where the edge of a park meets a riverbank are a by gay meetg spot, while the cy’s gay bar, durg the time of my fieldwork, was aga loted a dised hotel.

THE 5 BEST MOSW GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS MOSW

Wdow leadg to the gay bar Haikou. To anyone not faiar wh gay works the ci, the plac are visible and often impossible to fd.

As Xiaomai, a 19-year-old gay man Sanya, put :. Bee there really aren’t that many of gays … It’s good that we have the kds of plac. Outsi of the island’s ma ci, gay spac take a different form.

There are no gay bars or dark rners of parks ed exclively by gay men (or at least I have never found such plac). Instead, Haan’s smaller ci and towns, gay men meet teaho, nvenience stor and park spac shared wh other visors. In the spac, fears of beg “outed” and the possible damage this uld do to fay and profsnal relatnships, mean that, as I was warned by Ah Tao, is bt not to “say any gay stuff”.