Hundreds of gay men and women, some with rainbow flags painted on their faces, turned out for Shanghai’s first gay pride festival on Saturday to celebrate with cocktails, drag shows and a hot body contest.
There was no parade, and the crowd paled in comparison with similar events in Sydney or San Francisco, but some people detect a more international, open-minded attitude in China’s financial capital as it prepares to host next year’s World Expo and aspires to become a global financial center.
“I don’t think China is very conservative now. Shanghai is developing very fast and it’s becoming more and more international,” said Amy Lin, a 17-year-old from Taiwan who joined Saturday’s festivities.
The crowd was heavy on expatriates and English speakers, rather than typical Shanghainese.
The pride day events also included traditional Chinese dance performances by drag artists flashing fans and feathers. A few events earlier in the week, including a film screening and a play, were abruptly canceled because of a lack of proper licenses.
“We’ve organized events in the past, social events for the LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] community, wine tastings, book club, pub crawls, drag shows. But this is the first time that we’ve done it all in one week and call it a gay pride festival,” co-organizer Hannah Miller said.
The event received some favorable advance publicity in China’s official English-language press.
“The festival is being hailed for making the [LGBT] community more ‘visible,’” the China Daily wrote earlier this week, drawing comparisons with US President Barack Obama designating June as National Gay Pride Month.
Miller said she hoped the event could appeal to a broad array of people.
“We’re definitely not trying to make it a festival for foreigners. We want it to be something that everyone feels comfortable coming to and that can raise the awareness about the LGBT community in Shanghai for locals and foreigners, straights and gays,” Miller said.
One party-goer, a 27-year-old who gave his name only as Joe, compared the event to gay pride gatherings in the West.
“Coming from Sydney, this is considered quite small, because a big day out like this in Sydney will try about 5,000 to 6,000 people in the park,” he said. “I think one step at a time.”
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
RSS