With his pink lipstick, eye makeup and black nail varnish, Ti prefers not to shake hands and instead raises his arm into the classic, cliched limp-wristed position.
"I knew I was gay from the age of five or six," said the 27-year-old, sitting in a coffee shop in Vietnam's southern business capital of Ho Chi Minh City.
"I started wearing girls' clothes at first, and then when I was about 14 I started wearing makeup."
Ti stands out everywhere he goes in the city, whether he is with other gay men or not. "I don't care what people think. I don't feel discriminated against anyway. I've never been attacked or verbally abused," he said.
While cross-dressers are few and far between in the bustling metropolis, homosexuals are not.
Two years ago, Chung A, the head of the country's anti-AIDS, prostitution and drugs committee, declared that the number of gays in Vietnam could be counted on the fingers of his two hands. By March this year, Chung had changed his tune. "The number of homosexuals has increased a lot and the issue of AIDS prevention in this group needs to be addressed," he was quoted by the Lao Dong newspaper as saying.
The dramatic increase in the number of openly gay men in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi has sparked considerable media interest, with most newspapers labeling homosexuals as being either ill or victims of a current trend.
In the women's magazine The Gioi Phu Nu, a married man wrote into an agony-aunt column in May to express his distress at having fallen in love with a young man.
The response was less than sympathetic. "It's fortunate you and the young man are conscious of your `horrific love affair' and that you want to find a way out," said the magazine's advice columnist.
"I suggest you find a doctor who specializes in this field, be brave, admit your sickness and get cured."
The family magazine Tiep Thi Va Gia Dinh also did not mince words on the topic of homosexuality.
"Loving people of the same sex is deviant behavior that is incompatible with the good morals and time-honored customs of Vietnam," it asserted in a March issue.
But Le Hoang, the popular director of the controversial sex and drugs movie Bar Girls, struck a softer tone when he answered questions about homosexuality on a Vietnamese Web site in May.
In response to a man who said he could tolerate neither the genuinely "ill" gays nor the fashion victims, Hoang said: "Why? Are you gay yourself? Gays are ill, but there is no law saying ill people should be punished."
"Qualities such as morality, talent and dignity do not depend on sexuality. In Denmark, gays can marry. Well, Vietnam may not be Denmark, but we're not back in the Roman times either."
Outward discrimination of the kind sometimes found in Western countries is rare in Vietnam, possibly because homosexuality does not yet exist as a firm concept in Vietnam and also because a large degree of same-sex tactility is accepted as normal in Southeast Asian cultures.
"Gay identity is not well established in Vietnam. A man could have sex with another man and not consider himself gay," said Donn Colby, a Fulbright Research Scholar who conducted a survey entitled Men Who Have Sex With Men (MSM) in Ho Chi Minh City in 2001. "Because of this the number of men who experiment with sex with other men is probably higher here than in the West."
Those who do identify themselves as gay are careful about how, and to whom, they reveal their sexuality.
Tam, a 24-year-old graphic design artist, has never told his parents, fellow students or work colleagues that he is gay. "If you don't officially announce it, then people are obliged to treat you equally," said the slightly-built amateur DJ.
There are no laws or regulations on homosexuality or homosexuals in Vietnam, and no mention of gays as a risk group for HIV and AIDS.
Donn Colby believes the omission of homosexuals from public HIV prevention messages has encouraged MSM to underestimate their vulnerability to infection.
The misconception is worrying, given that Colby's survey of 219 MSM concluded that members of this group have multiple sexual partners, do not use condoms regularly and are at high risk of contracting HIV.
"But things are changing slowly," said Colby. "A programme (funded by the Ford Foundation) on men's sexual health in Nha Trang includes MSM."
Male prostitution and public sex venues are widespread in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. Zoos, parks, lakes, swimming pools and saunas have all been identified by state-run media as venues for sex between men.
But while police find it hard to take action against gay activity in public places, they move decisively on male brothels. One of Ho Chi Minh City's few male brothels was closed down last year and its owner slapped with a 10-year prison sentence.
The mainstream gay scene in the southern metropolis is also facing hard times, with its only gay club shuttered, ostensibly for refurbishment.
Minh, a 24 year-old architect with a French boyfriend, expressed his frustration at the gay community's lack of clear identity.
"I just think we should think more about us as a group. We should let people know that we exist," he said.
"Coming out is not enough. We need a voice."
Recently the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and its Mini-Me partner in the legislature, the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), have been arguing that construction of chip fabs in the US by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is little more than stripping Taiwan of its assets. For example, KMT Legislative Caucus First Deputy Secretary-General Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) in January said that “This is not ‘reciprocal cooperation’ ... but a substantial hollowing out of our country.” Similarly, former TPP Chair Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) contended it constitutes “selling Taiwan out to the United States.” The two pro-China parties are proposing a bill that
Institutions signalling a fresh beginning and new spirit often adopt new slogans, symbols and marketing materials, and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is no exception. Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), soon after taking office as KMT chair, released a new slogan that plays on the party’s acronym: “Kind Mindfulness Team.” The party recently released a graphic prominently featuring the red, white and blue of the flag with a Chinese slogan “establishing peace, blessings and fortune marching forth” (締造和平,幸福前行). One part of the graphic also features two hands in blue and white grasping olive branches in a stylized shape of Taiwan. Bonus points for
March 9 to March 15 “This land produced no horses,” Qing Dynasty envoy Yu Yung-ho (郁永河) observed when he visited Taiwan in 1697. He didn’t mean that there were no horses at all; it was just difficult to transport them across the sea and raise them in the hot and humid climate. “Although 10,000 soldiers were stationed here, the camps had fewer than 1,000 horses,” Yu added. Starting from the Dutch in the 1600s, each foreign regime brought horses to Taiwan. But they remained rare animals, typically only owned by the government or
“M yeolgong jajangmyeon (anti-communism zhajiangmian, 滅共炸醬麵), let’s all shout together — myeolgong!” a chef at a Chinese restaurant in Dongtan, located about 35km south of Seoul, South Korea, calls out before serving a bowl of Korean-style zhajiangmian —black bean noodles. Diners repeat the phrase before tucking in. This political-themed restaurant, named Myeolgong Banjeom (滅共飯館, “anti-communism restaurant”), is operated by a single person and does not take reservations; therefore long queues form regularly outside, and most customers appear sympathetic to its political theme. Photos of conservative public figures hang on the walls, alongside political slogans and poems written in Chinese characters; South
RSS