An ideal husband

‘So how is Paul?’ I asked my friend at lunch. Paul is an artist whose business portfolio ranges from graphic and interior design to landscape architecture, ladies’ boutiques and, more recently, bars. Married with two daughters, he is regarded as an ideal family man thanks to his clean-cut image and commercial success.

‘Oh, doing business as usual, I would say,’ my friend responded with a glint of wickedness in his eyes. Amused by my puzzled expression, he continued: ‘It’s just that I’ve learnt something out of the blue about him. I shouldn’t tell, though.’

‘My lips are sealed.’

‘Well, whenever I visit Beijing,’ my friend readily offered, ‘I make a point of accompanying my business partner Raymond to the gay pubs. One day, we bumped into Paul and his boyfriend: it turned out that they had been together for a long time.’

‘Hmm,’ that was the only response I could make. Over the course of our long lunch, it emerged that Paul was the third high-profile friend of ours to have come out of the closet, albeit, in his case, in a city thousands of miles away from his family. I am not sure, though, whether it is mere coincidence that they are all freelances-turned-entrepreneurs who are working in some area of media or design, exceedingly well-off, and giving off a slightly hippie aroma to their numerous clients and followers. As my friend proudly claimed, they form ‘the bricks and mortar of Chinese society’, with overarching power – financial, ideological and aesthetic – thanks to their creative business influence.

Discussion about lifestyles has been a favourite topic of conversation in China. As early as the beginning of the nineteen-nineties, there was widespread gossip that my friend was the boyfriend of his business partner Raymond, and that his marriage was largely to disguise his ‘unusual’ sexual orientation. Celibacy, among men or women, warranted speculations about their private lives.

However, I found in my recent conversations that what is new is perhaps that if someone is perceived as ‘different’ it will no longer make them a social outcast, at least not in the cities. Indeed, it has not only lost a lot of its power to shock but can even add to one’s social capital.

‘In the Japanese television programme I told you about, I was categorised as “bi-sexual”,’ the father of two said. ‘I like it – it gives me an interesting edge, making me stand out and appear less dull.’