‘Turn deaf, then go desire’

Just recently, I was invited to contribute an essay for an international publication of contemporary Los Angeles/California art entitled LA Art Land, a book which aims to provide a survey of exciting artists coming out of the American west coast. In the brief sent to me, the publishing house stated that a big chunk of the artists to be represented in the book are white, quite telling, I think, considering that California is an ethnic melting pot. Ignorance, bigotry, or simply a lack of deserving talent to showcase?

One of the un-white and un-straight artists to be featured is Dean Sameshima. In his first solo show in the United Kingdom, which referred to John Rechy’s The Sexual Outlaw, a racy but brilliant book that recounted the author’s three-day sex binge in LA, I chatted to Dean about punk, fags and Asian niceties. Our loud conversation aside, his photo series, entitled "Deaf Dudes" (the voice’s obliteration in the guise of a deaf guy), echo the interesting paradox in which mainstream gay culture – exemplified by annoying TV imports like Will and, worse, Grace – has come into widespread social acceptance while the queer outsider gets silenced, a silence highlighted by Sameshima’s re-photographing of the image of a deaf gay man from an old porn magazine. While a certain melancholia is apparent in the subject-image, the deaf dude’s use of sign language (i.e. ass@*#e) for homosexual purposes is a glorious indication of possible and pleasurable resistance to normative behavior and surveillance.

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From: Ronald Baytan

Associate Professor, Department of Literature

De La Salle University, Taft

Co-editor of Bongga Ka ’Day: Pinoy Gay Quotes to Live By (2002) and author of the forthcoming Queen of the Orient: Personal Essays and The Queen Sings the Blues: Poems 1994-2002

The First International Conference on Asian Queer Studies was held at the Ambassador Hotel, Bangkok, from July 7 to 9. Of course, one important issue addressed by the conference delegates was the nature of "queer" and its applicability to the non-Western world. How have the Asian LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) communities appropriated "queer" and what are its re/significations in the Asian world? Dr. Neil C. Garcia was the first to point out the limits of "queer" discourse in Asian contexts. He cited the Philippines where the gays and lesbians do not self-identify as queer and where the term – despite the globalization of gay and queer identities – hasn’t taken root.

Another memorable aspect of the conference was Asian cinema. I was particularly glad that Richard Fung from Canada acknowledged the contribution of our very own National Artist for Film Lino Brocka to the growth of Asian cinema and to his own politics and poetics as a director. Based on the sessions I attended and even in the cinema panel to which I belonged, it seems that masculinity and its proverbial other – effeminacy – are still crucial concepts in that they inform how gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer identities are negotiated in Asia.

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From: Neil Garcia

Associate Professor, Department of English and Comparative Literature

University of the Philippines, Diliman

Co-editor of Ladlad: An Anthology of Philippine Gay Writing (1994) and author of Philippine Gay Culture: The Last 30 Years (1996) and Postcolonialism and Filipino Poetics: Essays and Critiques (2004)

English was the language of the conference, although some papers, especially those from the East Asian countries, had been translated beforehand. My interest in gay studies aside, I found it exhilarating just listening to the varieties of "Englishes" being used by the different participants. The Malaysians intoned their words differently from the Indians and the Taiwanese. The lone Nepalese spoke with a somewhat British twang, and the sexy Brazilian spoke, well, like a sexy Brazilian. To my ear, the Filipinos proved the most interesting, because unlike the other Asians, I realized to my surprise that we apparently don’t have a standard way of speaking English at all. In fact, while some of the Filipinos at the conference sounded almost American, others sounded something altogether different – Cockney, Kiwi, Cebuano even! On the other hand, the streets of Bangkok also spoke their own Thai brand of English, and sometimes, I just had to look at the neon signs and posters twice or thrice just to relish it. In Silom, along one of the sois (side streets), an establishment promised the tourist a "luxuriant massage," for which he will only "lightly pay." Beside the elevator of a traveler’s lodge in Pratunam district, the guest is kindly admonished to "Please use the stair/if up-down one floor only."

In a way, this linguistic appropriation of the global language of our times already exemplifies the kinds of "usages" the different cultures and societies across Asia display regarding the undeniably American discourse of lesbian, gay and queer politics and identities. In my plenary on the second day of the conference, I just had to register what probably had been, by then, on everybody’s mind: Asia is the biggest and most diverse region in the world; thus, it will simply be foolish to think that a uniform queer or even gay and lesbian discourse can ever exist inside it. Moreover, it is obvious that global "neocolonial" forces have a lot do with the recent expansion of gay and lesbian discourse outside the cosmopolitan centers of the West. As a consequence, researchers in Asia who wish to participate in this discourse will need to keep in mind both local and national realities in seeking to understand its effects and assumptions. A case in point is Taiwan, whose burgeoning queer activism, publication, cinema, etc. are in fact tolerated if not encouraged by its government, precisely because they will conceivably help westernize and "internationalize" its culture all the more, so that China will not be able to easily claim the "rebel province" for its own in the foreseeable future. By contrast, in many of Asia’s conservative societies, anything vaguely homosexual is frowned upon in the public sphere, and in authoritarian places like Iran, for instance, can sometimes be fatal for the individuals concerned.

The conference gave the participants many gifts – friendship, conversation, knowledge, and for some, tastes and pleasures of many kinds. Enjoying after-dinner karaoke on a riverboat night-cruise on the Chao Phraya, I came to realize that rather than look longingly to America or Europe, it’s time Asians turned to one another for solidarity, and experience their continent’s many delirious currents and flows…

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In memory of the two Iranian gay boys Mahmoud Asgari (16 years old) and Ayaz Marhoni (18 years old) who were hanged in public two weeks ago. Human rights groups claim the government of Iran executed more than 4,000 gays and lesbians over the past 25 years. That’s more than one person every three days.