GETTING CURIOUS | What’s It Like To Be Gay In China? with Dr. Travis S. K. Kong

Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness

Sony Music

Science, Self-improvement, Comedy, Education, Society & Culture

4.9 • 21.5K Ratings

🗓️ 21 June 2023

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What do 90 young, gay men in mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong have in common? They’ve all spent years sharing their stories with this week’s guest: Dr. Travis S. K. Kong. He joins Jonathan as part of our Pride Beyond Borders series to discuss what it’s like to be queer in each of these places—and share his interviewees’ coming out stories, their experiences with sex and dating, and their senses of intergenerational queer community. Travis S. K. Kong is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong. He is the author of Chinese Male Homosexualities: Memba, Tongzhi and Golden Boy (Routledge 2011), Oral Histories of Older Gay Men in Hong Kong (Hong Kong University Press, 2019) and Sexuality and the Rise of China: The Post-1990s Gay Generation in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China (Duke University Press 2023). Curious for more? Check out the rest of our Pride Beyond Borders series: Is Queerness Divine? (Part One) with Dr. Eziaku Nwokocha Is Queerness Divine? (Part Two) with Dr. Eziaku Nwokocha What Are The Global Politics of Drag? with Professor Kareem Khubchandani And learn about Early China in parts one and two of our conversation with Professor Jue Guo. Follow us on Instagram @CuriousWithJVN to join the conversation. Jonathan is on Instagram @JVN. Transcripts for each episode are available at JonathanVanNess.com. Find books from past Getting Curious guests at bookshop.org/shop/curiouswithjvn. Our executive producer is Erica Getto. Our producer is Chris McClure. Production support from Julie Carrillo and Emily Bossak. Our theme music is “Freak” by QUIÑ; for more, head to TheQuinCat.com. Curious about bringing your brand to life on the show? Email [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to getting curious, I'm Jonathan Van Ness, and every week I sit down for a gorgeous
0:10.2	conversation with a brilliant expert to learn all about something that makes me curious.
0:15.0	All month long we are celebrating Pride Beyond Borders and this week we're headed to East Asia.
0:20.0	So welcome to the show Travis S. K. Kong, who is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Hong Kong.
0:28.0	His new book, Sexuality and the Rise of China, the post-1990s gay generation in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and
0:36.4	mainland China is out now from Duke University Press.
0:40.7	Travis, how are you?
0:41.8	Hi, I'm fine, thank you. Press. in London in the morning. We're both in London. I hate that we're not in person. I wish we were together.
0:56.3	Yeah. Someday we'll be lucky enough to do that. And you know I think in the United States
1:01.3	especially we have this very like American-centric way of
1:06.1	thinking about the world thinking about the geography of the world the politics of the
1:09.9	world just kind of all of it I hate to say it but I think culturally were selfish and so we are
1:15.2	trying to like get outside of our of our little bubble and learn more about queer culture
1:20.3	worldwide because queer culture is it is in every continent except for like Antarctica but I'm sure
1:26.7	there's been some queer people there too you know off and on but we wouldn't
1:30.4	learn about your research your scholarship but before we talk about Pride Beyond Borders,
1:35.5	let's talk borders. Geographically, can you situate us? Where are Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China?
1:45.0	Right, okay, so Hong Kong. are also situated in China.
1:46.0	Taiwan and mainland China are also situated in East Asia.
1:50.0	The historical division in 1949 between People's Republic of China and
1:55.0	Republic of China actually has shaped the post-war development of the three
1:59.6	societies.
	...

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