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

Getting Better with Jonathan Van Ness

Sony Music

Comedy, Society & Culture, Education, Self-improvement

4.9 • 21.6K Ratings

🗓️ 21 June 2023

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

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 podcastadsales@sonymusic.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Maltesers Salute Suzy. She's a total mother-lava. Instead of saying to work in mums, I don't know how you do it.
0:10.0	She asks, how can I help you do it? Join the mother-lavours at maltesers.co.uk.
0:16.8	Maltesers, let's lighten the load for working mums.
0:20.5	I raised for life for my best friend, who we lost to too.
0:24.1	I raised for life for my mum, who was diagnosed with bowel cancer.
0:27.5	I raised for life for my dad, who's living with prostate cancer.
0:31.5	I raised for life for everyone, facing cancer.
0:35.5	Who are you, Raceful?
0:38.5	Sign up to your local event at raceforlife.org.
0:42.5	And together, we will be cancer.
0:46.5	In partnership with Headline Sponsor's Standard Life.
0:50.5	Welcome to Getting Curious. I'm Jonathan Van Ness.
0:58.5	And every week I sit down for a gorgeous conversation with a brilliant expert to learn all about something that makes me curious.
1:04.5	All month long, we are celebrating Pride Beyond Borders. And this week, we're headed to East Asia.
1:10.5	So welcome to the show Travis S. Kate Kong, who is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Hong Kong.
1:18.5	His new book Sexuality and the Rise of China, the post 1990s gay generation in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China is out now from Duke University Press.
1:30.5	Travis, how are you?
1:32.5	Hi, I'm fine. Thank you.
1:34.5	I usually live in Hong Kong, but I'm just like traveling to London, so do you. So we're now both in London in the morning.
1:42.5	We're both in London. I hate that we're not in person. I wish we were together.
1:46.5	Yeah.
1:47.5	Someday we'll be lucky enough to do that. And, you know, I think in the United States, especially we have this very like American centric way of thinking about the world,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Sony Music, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Sony Music and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.