Hello! Comrade! Gay China

Hong Huang’s (洪晃) fashion magazine “ILOOK” shot another “edge ball”! (An activity that is ambiguous in its legal status) She invited China’s best designer Xander Zhou (周翔宇) as the guest editor and China’s cutting-edge photographer Trunk Xu (许闯), visually putting Chinese gays into her magazine. Total of 160 pages, directly presented Chinese gays’ life style. Guest editor Xander Zhou is on the cover page with the title “中国真高兴-Gay China”. (a pun of popular book “China is Unhappy“)

This article from Netease has the title “Hello Comrade”. The word “Comrade” (同志) in Chinese is another term used to describe homosexual. If you divide the two characters, the first character means “same” the second character means “will”, hence the slang.

In the western culture the word “gay” is invented to describe homosexual derived from the original meaning of “happy”. In the age of when Li Yinhe (李银河) (an activist for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender [LGBT] rights in China)  first advocated gay rights in China, this word might have a sarcastic meaning. But the situation of homosexuals today is close to the original meaning of the word “gay”. This is most prominent in the fashion industry, gay people are not only being recognized, but also are having great success in this field.

How to visually show this Group of “Comrades”? The chief editor Xander Zhou and photographer Trunk Xu gave us a very good answer. People are now more and more tolerant. Xander said, he took some of the mainstream fashion magazines’ stories and pictures with a man and a woman, changed into same sex. This is a bold vision. Trunk also enjoyed it, when shooting these photos he was surprised “everything went so smoothly.”  During the shooting this album called “Dark Room 5” no one hesitated, no one was nervous.

Album “Dark Room 5”:

Using multi-effect with superposition, the result is like the sarcasm of “South Park”, a massive gay culture. Men have begun to have their own makeup brands, shaving their body hair, chasing the quarterly new fashion. Women have to put up with men who love to talk beauty even more than them. The most stubborn straight men will still use the most old-fashioned way to wash their face to resist “comradizing”. How would you feel when you see the beauty of this hermaphroditism?

In the Greek times, people admire the strength and muscle, in the game, people eager to pick up the apparatus. In the future, how will the men fight? In this album, you only need to appreciate men, men’s color and body.

When Mr. DIOR provided tailor services, ladies were particularly satisfied with the skill of the tailoring. He was not only a good designer but also certainly let women feel love and closeness. That is all because the great pioneer of modern fashion design in fact is a “Comrade”. When in fashion design school often wondering why is the design of women’s brands always dominated by men? Today finally found out that all those geniuses are Gay.

  Yves Saint Laurent and Jacques de Bascher

 
John Galliano                             Karl Lagerfeld                             Hedi Slimane

While many are fashion shots, Photographer Trunk Xu is most proud of his “real life people” album. They are natural and relaxed, their happiness and love is the same as heterosexual men and women.

In homosexual liberal country like Canada, if you work in product development and when talking about market positioning, targeting customers’ genders, if you only have 2 options in mind, you will never get the job. Three-gender market position in Canada has been fully recognized. As the emerging market, the product development for homosexual attracts even more attention. Well, how tolerant is today’s China?

“When I was making this magazine, I never thought about reaching a goal, only wanted to make a good looking men’s fashion magazine. Maybe this offended the visual habits of some people, where mainstream fashion magazines’ stories and pictures with a man and a woman changed into same sex. But other than that, there is no difference. Why is “Comrade” – a name so closely related to fashion, such a taboo to talk about? No one knows, and no monkey knows.” – Chief editor: Xander Zhou “It’s all a matter of taste”

 
Xander Zhou                                    Trunk Xu                                          Hong Huang