Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015. 244 pp. US$27.00, paper. ISBN 978-0-8166-9200-2.
The anthropologist Tiantian Zheng has combined exhaustive fieldwork with a sophisticated theoretical framework to produce an informative ethnography of homosexual men in the city of Dalian in northeast China. Her incisive analysis lends this book significance far beyond the ostensible subject matter. By describing a despised minority subculture in such detail, the author provides a unique perspective on issues central to contemporary Chinese society and politics, including the construction and maintenance of hierarchy, mechanisms of social control, and the allocation of status.
The author avoids using the term gay, which implies the public affirmation of sexual orientation, political action, and a globalized sexuality based on Western norms. Instead she employs the terminology that her subjects use and calls them tongzhi (comrades). This appellation began as a mocking appropriation of communist jargon, which an oppressed group ironically redefined to stake out a nonconformist identity.
Unlike Western gay identity, tongzhi divide themselves into two discrete categories. They call men who take the insertive role in intercourse by the number 1, while sexually passive men are known as 0s. Identifying one another by sexual position replicates the heterosexual division between male and female roles. As with men and women in the straight world, tongzhi have different expectations for 1s and 0s. They assume that the 1 in a relationship will be the breadwinner and provide financial support for the 0.
Tongzhi have to cope with fierce prejudice from government functionaries, coworkers, and family members. Faced with intense hostility from key institutions, tongzhi rarely dare to come out of the closet or engage in activism. To the contrary, they actively collaborate with the state and strive to be accepted by the dominant culture, thus weakening their collective solidarity. Foreign mass media depict the globalized gay lifestyle in positive terms, making tongzhi acutely aware of their predicament. As a result, they find themselves trapped between their desires and circumstances. While tongzhi long to embrace a Westernized gay identity, they have no choice but to remain hidden. To deal with this contradiction, they outwardly pretend to conform to social norms. An estimated 90 percent enter into sham heterosexual marriages. But behind this protective façade, they construct a parallel secret life.
Unlike the West, where religious beliefs drive homophobia, in China this prejudice originates in secular society. Zheng accounts for the disdain toward tongzhi as an outgrowth of the national strengthening ideology that developed in the late Qing dynasty and early twentieth century. Ever since the May Fourth movement, Chinese have consciously manipulated gender roles to try to increase national strength. Because they associate homosexuality with decadence and effeminacy, they consider it a threat to the nation. Most Chinese regard tongzhi with contempt, seeing them as akin to traitors.
The title of this book emphasizes the importance of the postsocialist nature of Chinese society to understanding this minority. Extreme inequality permeates contemporary China, making class consciousness a major factor in the personal identity of individual tongzhi. Because they come from every stratum, their community is riven by inequalities of income, power, and status. Tongzhitend to follow the example of mainstream society and define themselves through consumption. So despite the persecution they face, tongzhi end up adhering to the state’s official line by eschewing activism and devoting themselves to work and shopping.
Zheng explores relationships between men of different economic backgrounds, which often involve the exchange of gifts or money. Although tongzhi of various social stations interact to some degree in person and online, they exclude one group from their community. Tongzhi of all backgrounds are extremely hostile toward internal migrants. Lacking education, connections, and resources, migrant tongzhi often end up working as low-end male prostitutes. Because of their debased status, other tongzhi regard migrants as polluted and dangerous and treat them with disdain.
The author has previously done extensive fieldwork on HIV/AIDS in China, and this book includes a chapter describing tongzhi involvement in these organizations. Because almost all of the staff at Chinese HIV organizations are tongzhi, becoming involved in the cause is one of the only ways for them to interact directly with mainstream society and the state. HIV organizations serve as de facto tongzhi clubs, and men use them to socialize and find sex partners. Surprisingly, Zheng documents embezzlement at one of these organizations, where senior staff siphon off funds donated by the government and charities. But by succumbing to the dishonesty that pervades postsocialist society, tongzhi end up undermining the organizations that provide them refuge.
Although Tiantian Zheng’s professed subject matter is the ethnography of homosexual men in a single city, this book opens up unique perspectives on the current state of Chinese society as a whole. The oppression suffered by tongzhi provides a detailed case study of the mechanics of social and political control in contemporary China. Although tongzhi have been marginalized and forced underground, they nevertheless embrace the dominant values that underpin the postsocialist order. They avoid activism, and instead devote themselves to work and consumption. They replicate the general class hierarchy within their own community. And they present themselves to outsiders as complying with the norms that oppress them. The surprising conformity of this persecuted group goes a long way toward explaining how the Chinese Communist Party maintains power in the face of so many challenges.
Bret Hinsch
Fo Guang University, Jiaoxi, Taiwan
pp. 129-131