It wasn’t until 2012 that filmmaker Chou Tung-yen (周東彥) discovered something that made him feel, in his words, like “Alice in Wonderland.”
That something was gay dating apps, the subject of a recent documentary he filmed, Looking For? (你找什麼). It is set to be screened at the Taiwan Academy in Manhattan on Thursday, as part of the academy’s Pride Taiwan series for LGBT Pride Month.
Organized by the Taipei Cultural Center in New York, Pride Taiwan aims to highlight the country’s leading role in advancing gender equality and freedom of speech in Asia, according to a news release from the center.
Photo courtesy of Very Mainstream Studio
This marks the first time that Taiwan’s government has put together an LGBTQ-focused arts program in the US, it said.
Pride Taiwan will also feature readings of excerpts from The Possible Memoirs of a Traitor (叛徒馬密可能的回憶錄) by Chien Li-ying (簡莉穎) and Solo Date by Tsai Pao-chang (蔡柏璋), as well as a screening of Alifu, the Prince/ss (阿莉芙), directed by Wang Yu-lin (王育麟).
GAY DATING APPS
Photo courtesy of Magnifique Creative Media
Looking For? tackles a question commonly raised on gay dating apps, though one sometimes not so easy for users to answer. Chou, the 36-year-old founder and director of Very Mainstream Studio & Very Theatre (狠主流多媒體), interviewed more than 60 men living in seven cities for his film.
He recalled the feeling of excitement he had when he first jumped into the world of gay dating apps, like Jack’d and Grindr, around six years ago. A friend showed Chou an app on his phone, which planted the seed for the documentary.
“I found myself puzzled and confused, and this frequently asked question meaningful,” he said. “At first, I thought they were asking me if I had lost anything. On the other hand, I also wondered if they were asking me about my life, like what do I look for in my life.”
The screening of Chou’s hour-long film in New York comes at a relevant time in Taiwan’s LGBT history. It was just last year the Council of Grand Justices ruled that the country’s Civil Code violated constitutional guarantees of freedom of marriage and equality. That code said an agreement to marry can only be made between a man and a woman.
Chou, who came out when he was in college, said he’d been in relationships with men who were schoolmates and also met one ex online through a dating Web site.
But with dating apps, Chou said he was curious about what everyone was looking for. So he chatted about that question with one of his studio interns, who worked for a gay community charity foundation in Taipei.
The intern told Chou that she had a bunch of friends who might be interested in speaking with him.
“I said, if I could film, that would be better, and they were so open to it,” Chou recalled.
Little by little, albeit in an unscientific way, Chou was introduced to more and more gay men in parts of Asia, Europe and the US, who were willing to talk about what they were “looking for” on dating apps.
One interviewee, identified as Michael Scoot in London, explained in the film how gays found dates before dating apps.
“In the past, gay people used to walk down the street and eye each other upon the pavement, and, you know, basically walk, turn around, look, make eye contact, and then walk toward each other,” he said.
Hsu You-sheng (許佑生), in New York City, described similar experiences.
“Back in the day, you had to make an effort to go to the sauna, to the park,” he said in the film. “Even in the earlier days, I went through a period of finding penpals. You had to wait to see if he would reply.”
By the time a date was arranged, quite a few letters had likely already been exchanged, Hsu said.
“By that point, two months would have already gone by,” he said.
Interviewees discussed how apps like Jack’d and Grindr have transformed the gay dating scene.
“It’s much more organic than going to a gay bar and thinking that you have two hours to try and convince everyone that you are the one,” a man identified as Bernie in New York City said in the film.
‘LOOKING FOR EVERYTHING’
Less than 10 minutes into the documentary, Chou begins asking interviewees what they are looking for. The responses varied.
“A boyfriend, I guess,” said James in Seoul, South Korea.
“Looking back, I was looking for true love I guess,” said Yang Yi (楊裔) of Beijing.
“Just looking online to see whether there was anyone to invite for dinner,” Scoot said.
Bob from Guangzhou took a broader view. “I respond, ‘I’m looking for everything,’” he said.
Chou said he realized that the answer to this question will constantly change, a discovery that he said was good to make.
“It’s a bit like happiness is a changing situation,” he explained. “It’s not like I found someone, he or she’s the love of my life, and then he or she or me will remain the same. We will change together.”
Part of Chou’s quest was also to understand the thoughts of people from a variety of different cultures and backgrounds, including China.
Chou said it’s difficult to generalize gay society in China because of the country’s sheer size.
He did say Chinese men he interviewed often referred to their boyfriends simply as “friends,” a term whose meaning Chou would have to clarify during their conversations.
“They would use the word, which is more of a code,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s because they are less open to it yet. But surely in the big cities, it’s super open.”
In the film, Chou is successful in getting his interviewees, many of them Taiwanese, to open up on camera and discuss their sexual experiences.
One man described how bondage and Sadomasochism played an important role in the process of his self-identification. Another talked about how, after sex, he would peek at his hook-up’s ID card while he was in the shower.
He’d do this to learn his hook-up’s real name and other identifying information and add this, along with whatever stories he told him, to a list after returning home.
DRUGS
The documentary also deals with the role drugs play in the gay dating scene.
One interviewee named Kevin, whose face is obscured in the film, said he got involved with drugs after feeling lonely and miserable, having had family and personal problems. He then started talking to someone on the dating app who used them.
Another, who went by the name Xiaofu (小夫), said he eventually quit because there was nothing fun about them anymore. He said he knew two people who died from using drugs, including one who committed suicide.
“It was a wake up call for me,” Xiaofu said.
Chou said that in making this film, he was looking to have more of a conversation with his subjects, rather than just asking questions.
He said he still uses gay dating apps from time to time, but more for browsing these days than for seriously looking for anything.
“The documentary started off with a question or the experience around the app,” Chou said. “But in the end, it’s not about the app anymore. It’s really about desire and love in [contemporary society], when everything becomes easier or quicker, like what we all really want.”
“The film became so personal,” he added. “I didn’t expect to put so much of myself inside.”
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