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CHAPTER ONE
[Comrade Romance Narratives: Private Homoerotic Experiences in Public Discursive Space]
The opening sequence of Tongzhi in Love 《 彼 岸 浮 生 》 (2008), a documentary by Ruby
Yang, features “Frog” Cui as he reflects on how same-sex desire has moved him “head over
heels in bliss” in a way he had never felt before. Nonetheless, he laments that although his
relationship with his boyfriend is “swift and intense,” it “is not like the usual relationship” as
their “feelings stay underground like the subway … [and] can only speed through darkness.” The
documentary’s aesthetic itself attests to an overarching theme of “speed[ing] through darkness”:
it presents a 30-minute, emotionally charged amalgam of the lives of three gay men in China as
they struggle to better understand the shadowy realm of contemporary Beijing’s tongzhi
subculture. All three men narrate their discovery of and integration into Beijing’s tongzhi circle,
relating their conflicted search for a “road in the middle” – an alternative to leading an
undesirable life normalized through heterosexual marriage without being considered
“disappointing Chinese [men]” who do not uphold key tenets of filial piety. The documented
experiences of these men raise several issues concerning the tension between secrecy and
disclosure, especially the role that personal narratives of homosexuality play in relation to those
terms. On this point, perhaps what is most intriguing about the film is that all three men allow
their faces to be captured on camera, even as they discuss the critical need to keep their tongzhi
identity a deeply buried secret due to societal and family pressures.
In China’s tongzhi academic and activist communities, it is difficult not to address the
shrouded reality of what Bai Xianyong has famously described as the “dark kingdom” inhabited
by the titular characters in his novel, Crystal Boys 《 孽 子 》 (1983). Representations of samesex
relations in China are inevitably organized around and plagued by an irresolvable conflict
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