MCLC: Coming home, coming out video

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Coming home, coming out video
Source: China Real Time, WSJ (2/19/15)
Video on Coming Home, Coming Out at Lunar New Year Goes Viral in China
By Colum Murphy
Gay Chinese men and women face intense family pressure at Lunar New Year. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
The Lunar New Year holiday can be stressful for single young Chinese men and women as family, relatives and friends ask the inevitable question: When will you get married?
For gay men and women the pressure can be even more intense. Though awareness and tolerance of homosexuality is slowly on the rise, in rural towns and villages the topic is rarely discussed. For many Chinese parents today, discovering that their son or daughter is homosexual is seen as a blow that could affect the family’s standing in the community. It’s also seen as reducing the chances the parents will have grandchildren, given that many families only have one child due to restrictive government family-planning policies.
To help more Chinese gay men and women as well as their families get through what can be an emotionally charged holiday, PFLAG China has made a close to seven-minute video that recounts–movie-style—the story of one gay man’s coming out against the backdrop of the Lunar New Year holiday.
The short video shows how the man is rejected by his mother and father after he tells them he is gay. Years later, the parents relent and the mother calls her son and asks him to come home; the title of the film “Huijia” means “coming home.” “Son, come back. No matter who you are, you’re always our son,” the mother says.
PFLAG China was set up in 2008 and is modeled on the U.S advocacy group whose acronym stands for Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.
The video had received more than 108 million clicks on the website qq.com as of Thursday noon time in China. PFLAG China cofounder, Hu Zhijun, who also goes by the name Ah Qiang, told China Real Time that he hopes the video will help young people deal with pressure especially from parents.
People like Frank, a Shanghai resident in his early thirties who is originally from Jiangsu province and who asked to be identified only by his English name. Frank told his parents about his sexual orientation more than a decade ago. But, Frank said, that didn’t stop his father from giving him an ultimatum last year: get married within a year or don’t visit home ever again.
Frank did return to his hometown this year. He has allayed his parents’ fears by telling them his wedding is imminent. He didn’t tell them he plans to marry a lesbian in a marriage of convenience. In a message to CRT via social media earlier this week, Frank said he was happy to be back home, spending time with his family. “Besides marriage, I can speak to them about anything,” he wrote.
PFLAG’s Mr. Hu said the video, which cost around $1,600 to make and was funded from donations solicited online, is also aimed at increasing awareness of homosexuality in the broader Chinese society. “Some people are still against it,” he said. Some Chinese, he said, think lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender “people are not normal and should seek treatment. They think it’s just a lifestyle that people can choose to change.”
– Colum Murphy
by denton.2 at osu.edu on February 20, 2015
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