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That they were closing down illegal prostitution, and I had nothing to do with that,” he says. They couldn’t have been clearer, “They just told me it wasn’t an issue. During the, now infamous, crackdown on prostitution in Dongguan in the spring of 2014, he quickly went to visit with the local government to see if they had any problems with his bar. Nevertheless, Jack likes to keep things in order and to ensure he doesn’t have problems. And why should it be? Being gay is not illegal in China, after all. I told them it was a gay bar before I started but it was never an issue,” he says. “As long as I have all the right permits, it is no problem. Perhaps to the surprise of some, Jack has never had any issues with the local authorities. Initially it wasn’t about business, just a place he started for his gay friends to relax and unwind, but it has become successful.
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Jack, 35, from Hubei brings a bucket brimming with Budweiser to our table at NOW, the bar he opened six years ago. Such changes are evident in Dongguan, which has it is own small, discrete, but thriving gay scene. Uncloseted gay men appear on TV, the nation has its own transgender celebrity, and the Confucian ideal that everyone must pursue heterosexual marriage and bear children (or rather, child) at the earliest available opportunity is being challenged, albeit slowly. NOW Bar provide a space for gay Dongguaners to be free, a cavern to support them from the pressures of the outside world.įor a country that classified homosexuality as a mental illness as recently as 2001, China’s LGBT scene has come a long way, and the love that dare not speak its name is beginning to find a voice. Here, men are at ease and can be themselves: open displays of affection, completely natural. Photos of muscular male models in tight pants line the walls, a disco ball whirls to the sounds of bad Cantopop, and table upon table of young men, arm-in-arm, throw dice, and down beer on Friday night at NOW Bar, Dongguan’s longest-standing gay bar. Slowly but surely homosexuals are asserting their place in Chinese society, but just how difficult is to be gay in a city like Dongguan?