a gay old time
GRACE JONES' bottom is wiggling and jiggling and generally defying gravity as she throatily exhorts the crowd to 'pull up to the bumper bay-beeee'. Her coal-fire eyes shoot sparks from their perch above cheekbones sharp enough to shave with, piercing the mist of sweat and dry ice which floats above the whorls and eddies of a human sea. This is Unity, Hong Kong's handover mega-rave, and 8,000-odd revellers are indeed unified by a combination of heart-fusing bass, chemicals and the wild catharsis of years of pre-handover tension.
Directly in front of Ms Jones and her wiggling bumper are score upon score of half-naked men, their hairless and painstakingly chiselled pectorals shining like Roman breastplates above the kind of stomachs used to flog sit-up machines on television. In an effort to get closer to the stage, one of my female friends attempts to penetrate this close-knit phalanx. 'Ex-cuse me, honey,' declaims the proud owner of a torso Michelangelo could have hewn, shouldering her aside none too gently. 'This is Boytown!' Boytown. A mobile citadel built on the twin tenets of hedonism and the body beautiful. Entry denied, unless the stamp in your passport pronounces you young, gay and gorgeous.
For gay Hong Kong, Unity proved to be something of an epiphany; a show of strength and solidarity in the midst of everyone from lager louts to curious tourists. An affirmation and an exclamation, with the bonus of a benediction from the high priest of camp, the cross-dressing crooner-turned-DJ Boy George.
Two years ago, not even the most optimistic gay men in Hong Kong envisaged such mass declarations of being out, loud and proud. Six years ago, homosexual acts were still a crime. In 1994, the last in-depth look at the gay scene by the mainstream press concluded that, despite the law having been dragged kicking and screaming into the late 20th century, the homosexual community in Hong Kong 'remains largely underground, unfocused and locked in the closet'.
All of a sudden, however, a current of hope is buzzing through the gay scene. A cluster of bars and clubs have opened around Glenealy and Wyndham Street, giving a geographical focus to what had been a disparate and scattered community and raising the prospect of a genuine gay precinct developing. Gay theatre is flourishing and the local film industry is showing the first signs of treating gay issues with sensitivity rather than ignorance and derision. Business people are beginning to realise the untapped economic clout of the so-called 'pink dollar'. And with the post-handover realisation that the sky hasn't fallen in, growing numbers of young Chinese gays and lesbians are summoning the courage to declare their sexuality.
The optimism, however, is guarded. No one is expecting Wyndham Street to turn overnight into Oxford Street, Sydney's famous gay way. Many of the people interviewed for this story have come out to their friends and family but did not want to be quoted by name for fear of prejudice in the business world. And for every person who comes out, there are doubtless a dozen others trapped in a netherworld of repression, denial and anonymous, furtive sex.