“It shouldn’t take violence and pain to create relevance for a vulnerable community”: Photographer Andrew Kung and creative director Kathleen Namgung speak to Arthur Tam about their new photo series, Perpetual Foreigner
An Intimate Portrait Series to Uplift the Asian Community anothermag.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from anothermag.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
How Uniting Queer Asians Through Nightlife Became a Global Movement
From Bubble T in New York City to Worship in Sydney, Arthur Tam looks at the nightlife spaces that are uplifting and unifying the queer Asian diaspora all over the world
February 24, 2021
Lead ImageA night at New Ho Queen, Toronto – Reggie in the hot potPhotography by Hao Nguyen
When I was living in Los Angeles, there was no space like Bubble T. No space where so many Asian folks of so many different ethnic backgrounds and queer identities would gather together and celebrate aspects of their heritage. No space that played the notes that resonated with my Chinese, American and queer identity. It just didn’t exist.
Twilight’s Kiss.
For a long time, the future was inconceivable for gay men. Even before the Aids pandemic, social stigma led to the pathologisation and criminalisation of the global community. Gay men lived in the shadows of society, maintaining their veneer of heteronormative stability by marrying straight women at great cost to themselves and their families.
This idea of hiding one’s identity might seem like a distant memory to today’s self-actualised youth. Still, we purposefully leave behind our forebears to carry their trauma alone. “Their sadness and shame” are the story Yeung wants to tell. He says, “We wouldn’t be where we are today without what these men have gone through. They need to be seen.”