In China, the word for “bar” sometimes means a large club with disco balls and loud music, so I was pleasantly surprised to find a relaxing, intimate pub environment. The room was dark, with softly lit lamps on each table and a couple colorful, rotating lights on the wall. Soft rock in English played at a reasonable volume in the background. Quirky and funny decorations covered the walls, including pictures of naked women. On the far side of the dimly lit room sat a lit-up stage with balloons for Karaoke.
I was the first and only person in the place, so I sat down with a beer and my phone. I did some breathing exercises to calm my rapidly beating heart.
After a time, a tall woman approached the table, her hips swaying toward me. Holding her bottle of beer, she whipped her short bob back.
“Come sit with me,” she invited. She extended a hand in greeting: “You can call me ‘Big Yao.’” Chinese people often add “Big” (da) or “Little” (xiao) to the beginning of their first name as a type of casual nickname.
I got up, walked over to her table, slipped into the booth across from her, and introduced myself.
“Where are you from?” I asked, wiping my sweaty palms on my jeans, willing my breathing to calm.
Big Yao took a long drag of her cigarette and leaned her head back. She blew the exhaled smoke up towards the ceiling. Her short bob rested just below her chin, her red lipstick lining her tiny mouth that sat between two chubby cheeks and above a double chin.
She explained that she recently moved to this city to be closer to her elderly parents and lived in a small city about 30 minutes away.
Green and pink disco ball lights rotating slowly around the dark room reflected off the smoke as it slowly rose upward. I fidgeted with my idle hands. She poured beer into my glass until it threatened to overflow, and then into her own. I picked up my glass and gestured it towards her. She followed, picking up her glass, and holding it below mine to show respect, clinked it with mine and took a sip.
Her gaze left mine as she began scrolling and tapping on her phone, taking long drags of her cigarette.
Feeling awkward in the silence, I desperately searched for something to continue my discovery of this familiar and yet unfamiliar world.
“Does your mom ever pressure you to get married?” I asked, a common topic of conversation among women of all sexualities and ages between 20-40 years in China.
“I am married! I have a 4-year old son.”
“Oh,” I nodded and took another gulp of beer, looking down at the table again.
“In China, we believe that because our parents gave us life, we have to give them back some things in return. Mostly, they need us to have children for them, to carry on their family name and to honor the family ancestors through filial piety. Like many my age in China, I’m their only child, so I had no other choice. I got married and I had a son for them.” She shrugged.
Although many in China identify as atheists, the tradition of filial piety is its own form of religiosity that has implications for LGBTQ+ people.
“Now that I’ve done that, I can pursue my own needs,” she explained.
“So…is your husband gay?”
Big Yao stared at me for a moment, holding eye contact with wide eyes until I looked down.
Perhaps my question was inappropriate, I thought self-consciously. I later found out that this was normal conversation for queer people in China, but Big Yao was perhaps taken aback or amused by this question from a foreigner she had just met.
“He’s not gay. It’s not a xinghun exactly,” she finally said.
Xinghun[1] translated into English literally means “marriage in appearance.” In the Chinese-English dictionary, the definition given for xinghun is: “a marriage between a gay man and a lesbian arranged in response to parental expectations of a conventional marriage.”
Xinghun, while still the norm in many parts of China, has recently become a controversial topic in the LGBTQ+ community in China. In a social media thread in the Xinjiang JOY LESba Group Chat several weeks after my conversation with Big Yao, one group chat member responded to a gay man’s solicitation on the thread for a xinghun with the following reaction:
“Maybe it’s because I’m out of the closet—my work unit, my boss, and my co-workers all know—but I kind of reject xinghun. It’s not very responsible. I think lesbians and gays should just get married, I mean get married for real, not xinghun. I also feel like if you xinghun, then you shouldn’t have kids. Children should be the fruit of love, not an episode of sacrificial scamming.”
Others disagreed with her, however.
“I think xinghun is still okay if you want kids. You know my little bro [a term butch lesbians use with each other], she did xinghun, and now she has a kid that’s already two years old. I have another bro who got married last year and now is already five months pregnant. As long as you communicate well with the husband, it’s okay. If parents on both sides really want a grandchild, I think it can be a good thing for one’s future,” the user wrote on the group chat thread.
Big Yao stubbed her cigarette out in the ashtray and, after first offering me one, pulled out another, lighting it and leaning back against the booth covered with purple felt upholstery fastened with huge fake rhinestones.
“My husband is one of those IT guys. All he needs is his computer and his video games, and he’s completely satisfied,” she said, giggling and shaking her head. “We don’t live together. I live with my mother and my son, and he lives in his own apartment. He understands me and my…situation, my needs. He doesn’t care. We have an agreement where I don’t bother him and he doesn’t bother me.”
“Are you out to your parents?” I asked.
A loud laugh erupted from Big Yao and she covered her mouth with manicured fingers adorned with long, white fake nails.
“Are you kidding me? My parents have no idea. They would for sure not be able to accept this lifestyle,” Big Yao rolled her eyes and clinked her glass with mine again before taking a sip.
My awkwardness started fade and my heartbeat slowed. I was starting to feel warm and dizzy, my head pounding a bit, the warmth of the alcohol in my belly willing me to be more confident.
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