Chinese Moms Talk About Their Queer Offspring in New Documentary

To listen to the KUCI Subversity Online podcast of our interview, recorded earlier today, with director Fan Popo,  click on: . 

Queer activists the world over will find this new documentary about coming out refreshingly different.  Instead of the typical coming out story from a gay or lesbian teenager or adult, Fan Popo's latest film, "Mama Rainbow," focuses rather on mothers of gay males or lesbians - and how they have become advocates for their offspring.

A lesbian and a mother from "Mama Rainbow"

Fan, young (born in 1985) and creative, is a product of Beijing Film Academy.  Working with the local activist group PFLAG China and the Queer Comrades webcast collective, the director has crafted a gender-balanced (in terms of offspring) movie that traipses across urban China in the quest of outspoken moms who have become active in the queer community in support of their children.  One of the more touching scenes is when a mother reveals to her son that in fact, she had already figured it all out months before her son told her, but she dared not ask her son if he is gay. 



In our Subversity Online interview, Fan concedes that the film features rather well-off families and mothers rather than fathers - although he reveals that some fathers (willing to be interviewed) were located after the film project was finished.

Fan at Outfest.  Photo copyright Daniel C. Tsang 2013

Developed from a shorter version posted online on the Queer Comrades video site, Fan suggests in the interview that half a dozen is the appropriate number of mothers to include.  His film may make viewers rethink what "family" means in a fast-modernizing China as well as moderating one's conception of "Tiger Moms".  Funding came from the partner groups, including those partially supported by the Ford Foundation.  The 2012 film is now on the festival circuit against a backdrop of growing efforts to combat homophobia in China.

Fan (right) is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose latest film has been shown in China and at film festivals in Bombay, San Francisco (Frameline) and now at Outfest in Los Angeles.  The documentary screens Saturday, 20 July, 2013, at 2 p.m. at the downtown venue, Redcat at Disney Concert Hall, 631 W. 2nd St., Los Angeles, 90012.  For the entire festival lineup, see the Outfest LA program guide. See also ticket information. - Daniel C. Tsang.

UC Student Regent Jesse Cheng to Tell Why He Came Out

Updated 10/25/10 9:44 AM: To listen to the 25 October 2010 show, click here:
. Updated: 10/24/10 11:27 PM adding this photo. Jesse Cheng (right) comes out. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2010.

University of California Student Regent Jesse Cheng is slated to appear on KUCI's Subversity show Monday evening to talk about his decision to openly declare his queer sexuality last Wednesday at a speak-out and vigil in the wake of the many gay teen suicides across the United States.

The Subversity show airs from 5-6 p.m. Monday, 25 October 2010 at KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, California, and is simulcast via kuci.org. Podcasts will be made available here and on various sites, including iTunes shop, sometime after the airing. Show host Daniel C. Tsang will be interviewing Jesse, an Asian American Studies senior at UC Irvine, and a voting member of the UC Board of Regents.

Our report on his coming out has spread across the continent and across the Pacific to China. It was picked up by the Huffington Post and news outlets as diverse as the Harvard student newspaper, Harvard Crimson, and U.S.-based Chinese daily, Qiao Bao or China Press. The account in the pro-China newspaper translated the blog report into Chinese while adding background information on Jesse Cheng and his family. That account was in turn picked up by the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece, Ta Kung Pao, as well as other media outlets in China, including China News.

Our Wednesday blog report was viewed some 1600 times whereas the Huffington Post story, posted the next day, has been viewedtwittered at least 1300 times

UC Student Regent Jesse Cheng Comes Out

Jesse Cheng campaigning on campus. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2009.

Updated 10/26/10 9:24 PM: To listen to the 25 October 2010 KUCI Subversity show interview with Jesse Cheng, click here:
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Updated 10/25/10 6:33 PM adding corrections.
Updated 10/24/10 11:26 PM: Jesse Cheng to appear on KUCI's Subversity show Monday 25 October 2010 at 5 p.m.; news from this blog travels to China. See subsequent blog entry.

In an emotional, heart-felt address, University of California Student Regent Jesse Cheng, a Chinese American senior from Cupertino, Wednesday evening October 20, 2010, came out as gay. Also identifying himself as bisexual and a "queer Asian American", Cheng, an Asian American studies major at UC Irvine, related what, over the years, led him to this very public declaration.

Years ago, apparently before he attended UCI, he had told his "homie" he liked men but his friends had beaten him up as a result, trying, he recalled, to beat the gayness out of him. He marched at his first gay pride march in San Francisco, but after his mother saw him on television, he denied it was him. At UC Irvine on Wednesday, he explained he "lived for" his mother and could not let him down. After his father found a rainbow flag he had collected, Cheng told his dad, his dad, with whom he was "not close," [CORRECTED] told him that he liked the colors. His dad always was watching his back, he told me later. He also contemplated committing suicide. All this history of denial was the backdrop to his dramatic, unexpected coming out during a dark Wednesday evening at the UC Irvine flag poles during the University's speak-out and candlelight vigil against homophobic bigotry and hate in the wake of the suicide of gay Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi last month.

Jesse Cheng (right) comes out. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2010. Updated: 9:32 AM October 21, 2010 adding this photo.

An emotional Cheng related how he had shared with then-Student Regent Jesse Bernal, the first openly gay Student Regent, after an earlier wave of anti-gay incidents around the UCs, that they should come out together, believing that such hatred should not happen at the UC. But Cheng didn't dare come out then. [CORRECTED: He told me later he did make a public statement as a bisexual, but spoke softly and there was no reaction.] Bernal was keynote speaker at a Harvey Milk Day at UCSC's Kresge College in May this year.

Cheng ended his talk to warm, sustained applause among the hundred or so UC Irvine students, faculty and staff listening to him.

A personal note: I have heard Jesse Cheng many times give inspiring, progressive speeches but this was the first time I felt he wasn't speaking as an activist. In fact, he spoke from the heart. Several times he almost broke down in tears. I had always known he was "one of us" -- another Asian American activist -- but this evening I was happy he was really one of us -- another queer Asian American. I went up to him and embraced him -- whispering into his ears -- "That was really powerful".
-- Daniel C. Tsang.

P.S. Jesse Cheng appeared on my KUCI Subversity show 27 July 2009.