Queer books

Singapore's National Day is celebrated in August, which is why their version of Pride is held in the same month. This time, it was called IndigNation and it was held from 1st till 24th August.

You can read some of the write-ups to the events at the official website.

I managed to attend two out of the over twenty events lined up. I was there during the launch, where Alex Au of Yawning Bread fame had a forum on the Singapore Elections held in May.

You might be wondering what election has got to do with homosexuality, right? The significance is that the gay issue was brought up for the first time in the election, where candidates were asked what their views were on homosexuality.

Apparently, one of the reporters even asked "If your son told you one day he was gay, what would you do?" to the election candidates during one of the forums.

The answers were interesting. Some of them were clearly uncomfortable or fearful and it showed in their replies.

I find this a gem. Taken from here.

When asked "Do you know any gays? How would you include them in your politics?" Ellen Lee: "I have a handful of gay friends. I do not think there is a special need for me to represent them because many of them are already very articulate and can do it themselves. But if they want to help me in my election campaign, I would not have objections. Their private lives will not be an issue."

I won't scratch your back, but please scratch mine if you want to.

Just classic, aint it?

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The secone event which I went to was the launch of SQ21: Singapore's Queers's in the 21st century, which was on Wednesday.

It contains stories of how a gay youth won his mum over, a young man who came out on national TV, two women who got married in an anti-gay church, a mother who is proud of her two gay sons and the challenges and triumphs of a hearing impaired gay man, among other inspirational accounts. - taken from Fridae

You might think that it's a nameless book, where the owners' of the stories did not reveal names. But they did, with photographs included.

That is indeed a milestone, not just in Singapore but in Asia.

They are teachers, students, in the army, consultants, etc.

Almost all of the people featured in the book were present and they read excerpts from the book. I wasn't interested in buying it initially, but after the mother with two gay sons told her story, I decided to buy it.

These people lead such open lives to their families, colleagues and themselves; that the people around them are so accepting that I wonder why aren't there more people like them?

Because it's not easy. It takes courage to withstand taunts of faggot and gay in school. It requires a strong person mentally and emotionally to withstand the whispers and the finger-pointing. To simply not belong.

On the other hand, there are those who will be supportive and admire your conviction in being true to yourself in public.

I am not one for inspirational stories like Chicken Soup for the Soul kinda thing, but it is very uplifting to know there are people like that out there, living the kind of life I have always wanted.

Ultimately, it is a collection of stories about love - parents loving their children regardless of sexuality and loving the people we know for the basic reason that they're living, breathing creatures like us too, with dreams and aspirations.

I might post excerpts from the book which I find interesting.

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Two days before the SQ21 launch, a Malaysian currently based in the U.S. launched his own coming out book, titled Is Present the Future? - An Asian Gay Man's Coming Out Journey in Kuala Lumpur. The book is in Mandarin.

This might be the more interesting one as he's a columnist, who married and then divorced and currently with his boyfriend Angel.

For more information, please go here.

T.G.I.F.

When I was looking for a laptop, one of the brands which I looked into was Dell. I finally chose an HP.

Surely you would have heard about Dell recalling up to 4.1 million batteries worldwide because of safety reasons. If I am not wrong, one of the batteries exploded right here in Singapore, though none of the reports online mentioned Singapore. There were incidents in Osaka, Nevada and a few other places.

And coincidentally, CF is thinking of purchasing a Dell desktop. Erm, I suppose it should safe, as the recall affects PCs and laptops sold between April 2004 and July this year.

YouTube even has a clip ....



Anyway, to kick off the weekend, here is something interesting related to PCs on fire ;P



Have a great weekend all.

Bonne chance

I am like, the worst boyfriend ever! It's like, I was so upset and like, facing the reality of CF finally leaving, so much so that I forgot to ask his time of arrival in Vancouver!

Sigh, what an airhead I am.

So I have to call up a friend of his yesterday morning to ask. Very pai seh (embarrassing)! Thanks very much, GL!

Anyway, he has arrived safely in Vancouver this morning, after an 11-hour transit in Japan. Apparently, he's quite excited and all till he doesn't feel jetlagged.

For one, it's good to know that he's alright. He's all by himself there, not knowing anyone, but friends' friends to help him settle down. For that, I am really grateful that there are many kind souls that he knows; friendships that he has nurtured that they're willing to help CF out.

Another thing is that he's not homesick and he doesn't miss me. Which is good, as what's the point of travelling half way around to world and then miss the familiarity of home?

He's going to start a new chapter of his life. The over-protective me has to let go and let him live his own life and allow him his first taste of independence.

Mind you, not that he hasn't been independent and strong-willed, but I believe it's totally different when you're abroad and home is not a three-hour trip away.

Though on the other hand, I would love to share this part of his life with him. I am excited for him as well.

He just called about two hours ago and from the sound of it, he's really enthusiastic about it.

I sincerely wish him all the best. I hope it will be a journey of discovery for him, because the unexamined life is not worth living. It's not easy, but ultimately it would be worth it.

As for me, I have the same journey to go, albeit differently.

I love you, dear.

Au revoir

I know I am no poet, but still ...

I know this is corny
But you still make me horny
Though we'll be far apart
You'll always be in my heart
CF, I love you very much
So you better keep in touch!
*kisses*

Sayonara my dear!

Au revoir!

Farewell for now ... and safe journey.

Fireworks

For Singapore's National Day celebration, there were four fireworks display scheduled for the previous Saturday, Tuesday (National Day eve), Friday and yesterday. All of them were at the Esplanade.

I didn't plan on going for any of those, but it so happened that I called one of my colleagues last Saturday and he said he was going for the first one, which was by the Italian team.

It was a wonderful and marvellous display of colours. Although it was not entirely in-sync with the music, it was still simply amazing.

As such, I was looking forward to watching the finale yesterday, which was by the French team.

I went with the same bunch of people as the last one, which were my colleague QF, his ex, HR who was also the birthday boy, HR's adopted brother, B and his wife, B's brother and two other people.

How I got to know QF was quite interesting in itself, which I shall leave for another post.

As the waitress for taking our drink orders, it was let slip by QF that HR was the birthday boy. Let's call the waitress SR.

SR: Happy birthday, sir. And your name is ... ?
HR: HR.
QF: So aren't you going to give him something special? Like a kiss?
SR: Haha ... OK.

And she blew a kiss a to HR.

QF: Is that all? You should go nearer and kiss him on the cheek!
SR: Err (hesitating) ... sorry, but I am not interested in guys.

All of us: ????

That was kind of out of the blue. Imagine, we're almost all queers there and out of a sudden, the waitress said that she is too.

But of course, we didn't all come out to her. I suppose she could have guessed, by our very loud and boisterous manner the whole night.

She was really nice and friendly. Even though the food was quite terrible for the kind of prices we were paying, she did her best to make it a good evening for us.

The fireworks was to start at 9pm. But long before that, the area behind us were teeming with people already.

Let me describe the place that we're at. We were sitting just right beside the river, where the fireworks display was going to be, which was at the river.

As we were patrons of the restaurant and we were dining al-fresco, the area was cordoned off from the public.



Some of the pictures which I managed to take.



The beginning wasn't that great.

After the first two minutes, it got better. QF was saying that the not-so-good start was to bulid up to the finale.













And the finale of the 10-minute fireworks display. I was paying more attention to the fireworks than taking the picture, which is why the picture turned out like this ;P



Don't think I would take pictures of fireworks again as it's distracting. It's probably better to just enjoy the show and soak up the moment. If I were to take pictures as well, I can't fully concentrate on either and both would turn out mediocre - the experience and the pictures.

While I was watching the fireworks, I wished that CF was beside me.

Anyway, it's 24 hours more before he flies to Vancouver ...

My fairy lad

I know most of my readers are not straight and many of us would have, some time or another while we younger, liked a straight guy and wished he would like us back.

I know I did. But I realised there's no point in loving someone who wouldn't love me back, straight or gay.

Anyway, I thought that this would capture the meaning quite accurately and amusingly too LOL

Oh, and I just watched this movie called Queer Duck: The Movie and there was a scene where Queer Duck was deciding which Broadway to watch.

My fair lady becomes My fairy lad, by bringing forward the letter Y. ;P

Romanovsky & Phillips - Give Me A Homosexual
(For all the straight men who think that every gay man is out to seduce them, and for those gay men who indeed are.)

With so many gay men and so little time
It never has been an obsession of mine
To try and pursue heterosexual men
The ones who are real or the ones who pretend

That kind of facade's not attractive to me
I like my lovers as queer as can be
Give me a homosexual
Who loves in a homoemotional way
I like a man of acceptance
Give me a guy who is glad to be gay

Now to some of my peers its the ultimate thrill
Seducing a straight man by bending his will
But I am a man who loves men who love men
And that is of course what I most recommend

While I'm sure there are men who just need some unstraightening
I haven't the patience to be educating

Give me a homosexual
One who's perfected his oral technique
I like a man who's had practice
Give me a guy who is fluent in Greek

And I don't understand all those classified ads
Filled with desires that I've never had
"Straight-looking Marine seeks straight cop to please..."
How straight do they look when they're down on their knees?

It's a taste that I've never been able to savor
This preoccupation with sexist behavior
And people will ask us "Which one's the girl?"
'Cause they limit themselves to those roles in their world
But we don't have any such models to clone
We're perfectly free to develop our own

Give me a homosexual
I don't want a husband and I don't want a wife
I like a man who's my equal
Someone who's made it the style of his life

Give me a homosexual
Who loves in a homoemotional way
I like a man of acceptance
Give me a guy who is glad to be gay

I spy with my little eye

I arrived back in Singapore on Sunday night after a 6-hour journey. It was an hour longer than usual as there highway authorities closed 2 out of the three lanes available, thus creating a massive jam right after the Seremban exit.

In the MRT, I caught sight of two guys standing about 15 feet away. One was caressing the other’s hair. He was doing it for quite some time, about two minutes.

Suddenly he stopped and he cusped the other person’s face.

Awww, how sweet. And was that a ring I saw on each of their right hands?

The MRT was not that empty, there were about a dozen or so other people in the car.

A while later, the same guy was back to stroking the other’s hair. I could only see the back of the person doing the stroking, whereas I have a sideways view of the strokee.

All the while that I was snooping watching, oftentimes their faces were so close to each other that I thought they were kissing!

The whole time it happened'

- No one was giving them strange looks or dagger stares.

- No one shouted profanities at them, like "You deserve to go to hell, faggots!"

- No one screamed while digging their eye balls out.

- No marriage was broken as a result of affection between two people of the same sex, who are unrelated to married couples.

- The train didn’t blow up because of short circuit caused by lightning.

Now, if only CF will lose a bit of his inhibitions about PDA without getting intoxicated …..

Till we meet again, farewell for now

I was back in KL last Friday to see CF for the last time before he leaves. I would have preferred to meet him closer to his departure date, but that would be difficult as his family would want to spend time with him as well.

We watched Pirates of the Caribbean at One Utama. Two thumbs up for the movie.

Although I kinda forgot some of the things which happened in the first one, it was still an enjoyable pirates adventure with Captain Jack Sparrow.

Even though the second part of a trilogy is usually more like a filler and somewhat a teaser to the finale, Pirates managed to hold its own and it is all thanks to Johnny Depp.

I think it would be the biggest blockbuster movie for the year. Can’t wait for the finale next year, which will have Chow Yuen Fatt as a ruthless pirate and apparently Singapore would be featured more prominently than just the two mentions of the word Singapore in this one. LOL

They were so proud of it that it this little titbit was published in the newspapers.

Knowing CF would not understand the underlying sentiment, I still said anyway - let’s catch the Pirates 3 next year, when I go visit you in Vancouver.

After the movie, we shopped around for a while, as we wait for the rest of his high school friends to come. The farewell for CF was to be at Shogun, the Japanese buffet restaurant.

There were six of his friends, all guys and four of them knew about us. We all had quite a lot of fun eating, chatting, laughing, etc. I usually get along well with people younger than myself, so it wasn’t that difficult to join in the conversations.

Besides, I have met a few of them before.

Now, as far as I know, the rest are all straight. So what is it with straight people who try to act all gay and lovey-dovey and huggy amongst themselves? Though it was quite funny to watch, it was ironic for me as I can’t do that because as much as I want to, CF is extremely self-conscious in public and he doesn’t allow me to.

I am quite affectionate, even in public. CF used to let me hold him in public, but he doesn’t any more, for reasons best known to himself. Or not.

Later I found out that his friends have quite a good impression of me, which I was glad.

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The next day, I was supposed to meet him for a very short while, as he had to attend a friend’s birthday celebration. We met at two in the afternoon and he left at half past three.

I had wanted to meet a friend of mine, RH, which I haven’t seen in a long time. She was quite excited that CF was coming along.

But then as it turned out, traffic was terrible and it was difficult to look for a parking space for all three of us, so RH only got to get acquainted with CF for thirty minutes.

RH started to tell me about the updates in her life. She is close to a former classmate of mine, who said that he would not send his sons to all-boys school as he didn’t want them to be gay.

I was like, WTF?

RH said she then asked him whether he knew anyone who was gay or perhaps, he had some gay tendencies while in high school.

Of course he said no (he’s straight, by the way), but then he specifically stated that I gave out good luck cards or something like that to everyone in my class.

First of all, I don’t remember to such a thing. Or maybe I did. But more importantly, what the hell is wrong with giving personalized messages to everyone?

This got CF laughing and trying to stifle his laughter. Not sure whether he choked on his salad or not though …..

Anyway, CF left not long after.

Before I could say anything, RH asked “Why do you go out about him?”

As I was about to answer, I realized her implied meaning. So I shot back, “You mean I could do better?”

“Yeah, he’s so mean to you. He treats you like shit. Not wanting you to visit him in Vancouver, taking you for granted, not letting go to church with him …. “

As it is, anyone who doesn’t know either of us and sees us in public, would know through observation that I love him very much and CF, to quote RH, “treats me like shit”.

The thing is, RH is a good character reader, being a woman and mature and all.

In this case though, I have known CF for the whole of seven months and I believe, or at least would like to believe that I understand CF better than she does.

True, CF is mean. He is mean to the people who love and care for him. In fact, he treats his friend better than he does towards me.

His rationale? Friends don’t understand if he were to treat them not so nicely, whereas his loved ones are supposed to understand him and his actions better, even his flaws, thus allowing him to be himself.

Twisted logic it may be, but that’s CF for you and me.

About him not wanting me to go to church with him, his logic is that his friends which are much younger than me (they are eighteen) don’t feel comfortable with me around. I am not as “crazy” as they are and there would be some awkwardness if I were present.

Yeah, this is somewhat related to the other point, about taking care of his friends’ feelings more than mine.

I told her all these. I know deep down he loves me ... but it's far too deep to surface LOL

CF is, at the moment, incapable of fully expressing his affection towards me. Not that he ever did.

And his reason is because of a fight that we had in early June. He still hasn’t gotten over it.

Granted it was almost entirely my fault … but then CF is a sensitive and emotional soul and he needs his time to heal.

In fact, this whole post seems to be pointing out all the bad things about CF.

But really, he's a sweet dear.

Which brings me to my main point (finally)!

I realized I am not perfect either. He is still young and inexperienced. His environment has not made him a wiser person as yet.

Though sometimes, he can be wise in his own ways.

This is my first serious relationship. I know it is hard work to maintain but I am willing to stick by it till it is not possible anymore.

I gave him a book of pictures of us and our memories together thus far. Let's look forward to creating more memories together ...