Moments with Language

Just to recap some special moments in the Hong Kong Pride, when I felt language was working.

• At the beginning the hosts asked the participants to raise the rainbow flag, and she used the word 扯旗, obviously it is a word play. She was playing with the double meaning of that word, as I saw everyone was okay with that. Then I gave a second thought I suddenly realize it is very difficult to have any word play with lesbian sexuality, and the host was asking women to扯旗 as well… well, is it possible?
• In the pride there were volunteers helping to hold some loud speakers to play music. For Chinese there were Denise Ho’s song (金剛經 and 光明會, both can be read as encouraging gay movement somehow), for English there are some typical choices as well, such as Madonna’s Hung Up, Lady GaGa’s Poker face, and of course I’ll survive.
• Other than that it was quite quiet, not much party was going on, people even did not dance, they rarely shouted… Suddenly there was a woman in the crowd said, “Hey, are you guys just come here to walk? It is so boring!” We laughed and she started asking the crowed, “Hey! Tongzhi, are you proud?” No one answered her… she was disappointed, but I can understand, it is still difficult to say you are proud of being Tongzhi, and besides, people around are not used to parade and openly support LGBT community.
• At the same time a group of English speaking lesbian, they shouted, “We are gays and lesbians, we are out and proud!” My friends and me later on joined them and shouted. I felt it is really different to speak in English, simply one feel easier to say something in her or his second language. And with slogan it is easy to make one believe in something, suddenly it reminds me those propaganda, it is the power of words. Suddenly I really felt “out and proud”.
• The woman who said it was boring joined as well. She changed the slogan, saying “We are bisexuals, we are out and proud!” or “We are transsexuals, we are out and proud.” The group smiled but looked at her in an odd way. The woman asked, “Why not? It is alright to be bisexuals and transsexual!” I did not feel like saying that as well actually, I still do not know if it is related to my stand (even I think being bisexuals and transsexual is totally okay), or simply because I am not bisexuals or transsexuals.

Pride in Hong Kong (1)

It is what they called Rainbow Shower!

There's no point to talk about pride parade without going there, but I am so proud to say finally I have been to Pride Parade in Hong Kong and finished the whole parade and after-party! The atmosphere was not that cheerful indeed but still it was nice. After show party was great! They invited some celebrities to perform, good to see some straight celebrities supporting Pride Parade. Before reflection... let's see take a look of some pictures!

Great to see LGBT work union, but I guess it's still a long way to go for some other professions - hope I will see groups like LGBT firefighter, LGBT police, LGBT teacher one day!

I got a free hug here!

Playing Language

Let's have fun.

I took these pictures in Amsterdam, I simply love these cards - they make fun with classical pictures. The lines are smart and subversive! Click to enlarge and read!

Names

I got this button pin in Oslo Pride, it is written "Jeg er i hvert fall ikke hetero". I was really curious of the meaning of this, so I asked a Norwegian girl in that counter. She told me it means "I am anything but not straight", then she further explained to me that, because the pride includes everyone who is not straight, therefore they made this button pin.

After reading Simone de Beauvoir and also Chou Wah-Shan, I started to further think about the naming of LGBT community. Of course now there are only few people would like to use the clinical term "homosexual", but in Hong Kong, the use of the word "queer" is not popular, instead, people use "tongzhi".

Chou Wah-Shan mentioned in his book the origin and the meaning "tongzhi" carries. It sounds really political correct. However, I remember one of my gay friends once said, he doesn't want to use "tongzhi", simply because he doesn't feel like having same will or same ambition with other gay people.

I keep on thinking about these "naming" and "label" issues for this project, hopefully I can draw some conclusions on my observation.

Why gay parade?

I suggested the topic "presentation and representation of gay parade", simply because of my experience in Oslo. Since I arrived in Norway as an exchange student, I have been looking forward to at least go to one gay pride parade.

However, it is rather difficult to search for one in winter time, therefore before I left Europe in the end of June, I could only go to Oslo Pride, which is a relatively small one. Anyway, it was still a nice experience. Not only because of the nice crowd, also because of the interesting use of symbols, colours, and of course, language. Therefore I think it would be an interesting project to explore the use of language in gay parade.

From now on, I will write more on the experience in Oslo, and the information of Pride London and Hong Kong Pride, which I gathered for this project.