WHEEL ME OUT - Xiao Gang Wei

Actor, filmmaker, pioneer, and comrade — Xiao Gang shares his time served in China’s pink revolution

Interview by Carissa Welton

When did you first come out as an actor? I think I’ve always been a bit dramatic naturally. The opportunity the stage allows me to fully express myself is what draws me to acting and theater. I didn’t study acting until university, at the Xin Jiang Arts Institute. I went on from there to Shanghai Drama Institute.

When did you first come out as a comrade? [comrade in Chinese is another word for homosexual] I moved to Beijing in 1998 and came out in 2000, when I was 24 years old. The following three years were very difficult. I spent a lot of time at DragOn, a gay bar that no longer exists. It was a phase in my life when I didn’t have strong sexual feelings for men, I was more interested in romance and intimacy and expected all the men jumping all over me at the bar would want to share love and a relationship. But that was hardly the case.

It was confusing and depressing at first. I felt like there was something wrong with me. I’d think, ‘Wow, all these attractive guys are chasing me but I don’t know how to maintain a relationship with a man.’ But that changed after a while, once I got to know gay culture better.

How did that change exactly? Eventually I started making more gay friends, going to more gay events, watching gay movies. All of this helped me to understand gay culture better, and likewise, myself.

Obviously gay films have had a huge and direct impact on your life. What was it like to act in one of mainland China’s first gay movies, Men & Women in 1999? Did your role in the film help you to come out later? That was a very crucial time in my life. It was my first film and somewhat of a stepping stone for me in terms of my identity. The story actually focuses on similar issues to the ones I was facing. My friend directed the film independently with no budget, so it was all done in one take. I was actually the understudy for the part and ended up in the movie because the original actor chickened out.

It sounds like a very bold move on your part. What was the film about? There are two stories going on simultaneously. The core story focuses on the relationship between Xiao Bo and Chong Chong, my character. Basically Xiao Bo is a young man that comes to Beijing to sell clothes in a shop. The shop owner tries to rape him so he runs away and meets Chong Chong. They become close friends and eventually lovers. The other story is about an editor for a magazine called Fabulous Toilet. He collects graffiti from toilets to publish, writing a book that no one will read, while his boyfriend has a radio station but he is his only listener.

Is it possible to find a copy? Sure. It has English subtitles.

I hear you have a few nude scenes. I’m naked in all my gay films!

What other gay films have you been in? In 2003, I starred in Old Testament. I played a character with HIV. Again, this film was very spontaneous in terms of the process. It was filmed in six days, which is the director’s preferred style of filming. It was featured at the Berlin Film Festival that year.

Your films have won international festival praise and success. What has the response been like in China? Neither of the films have ever been publicly shown in China. The Chinese government and general public don’t really know about gay films so they don’t care. Gay culture is subculture, the films are only known within gay culture here.

You are very well known and established in the Beijing gay community. Can you tell me more about your involvement and activities besides acting in films? Last year I helped organize a gay summer camp for youth all over China and participated as a counsellor. The camp lasted for over one week and offered all kinds of activities like group discussions, role play, using artwork to help self-expression. We also had speakers at the camp, famous figures such as writers and successful professionals in China that are gay. The most memorable speaker for me was a 60-year-old man who had spent time in jail for being gay.

And was this an extension of the public workshop group you also founded, Beijing Drama Queens? Yes, exactly. In Beijing Drama Queens we focus on theater as something that helps people by giving them more perspectives and possibilities to deal with life issues. Drama and acting also helps people to gain confidence and experiment with different experiences so that they can fully be themselves. We’ve held the workshop with children, disabled people and company professionals. Really, there’s no need to take being gay so seriously.

Yes, there’s an element of comic relief in your talk show series, Queer As Folk Beijing. How did you first get the idea for the show? The Pheonix network first asked my co-host, Steven Jiang, to host a gay talkshow, so initially I got on board to support him. We had a press conference to get things started, but we never felt quite comfortable with the agreement, and eventually the whole thing fell through. Instead of wallowing in our disappointment we decided to go through with producing our own show independently. We borrowed a camera from a friend, found another English speaking co-host, and started filming after three days. We went on location to Qingdao and Shanghai. We had a ball! And by the end of the first season we had 1 000 000 viewers.

And how has the show developed since? After the success of the first season, I applied for a grant from the Ford Foundation to produce the second season. We received funding for 24 episodes, which we're half way through filming now..

What can you say in general about what you’ve learned? There’s no possible way to categorize people. That’s the point of our show, really, is to demonstrate how different everyone is. Too often people tend to say, “Ohhhh, she’s like this, he’s like this.” We try to get as many different opinions and people involved in our show as we can.

Who will viewers meet in your upcoming episodes? What’s next? We’ve got a famous Chinese lesbian artist, a Jewish gay guy living in Xin Jiang, Muslim gay men, money boys [male prostitutes], and an interview with Tong Ge [a reputed Chinese scholar and famous novelist, openly gay] to name a few. WMO

The latest episode of Queer As Folk Beijing — coming soon to a computer screen near you

Blog.sina.com.cn/qafbeijing