So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu…
No, are you crazy! Of course it’s not the end of QAF Beijing! We’re just saying goodbye to our second season and we’re doing it with an episode revisiting all of your favourite QAF Beijing moments of the past year. Masters of ceremony in this feast of nostalgia are our lesbian friends – with their declarations of love, they put a big cherry on top of this season’s creamy cake. Enjoy! Don’t worry about the extra calories!
But do make sure you’re fit by the end of April, when we’ll meet again in a brand-new season!

Are you born gay or do you become gay? Does it matter?
Tons of people are obsessed with the question whether homosexuality is a gift of nature or a man-made thing. Some people think they know the answer – scientists who claim that they discovered a ‘gay gene’, or religious organizations who believe that the concept of Adam and Eve (not Adam and Steve) provides an absolute explanation that homosexuality cannot be a natural thing.
Yet you really don’t need to know the reason behind homosexuality in order to enjoy it.
At QAF Beijing it is our mission to guide people towards tolerance and understanding. In this episode we once more call in the help of an old friend, Dr. Xingxing from the organization Aibai. For all the souls out there who are trapped in the why-question: listen to this expert and let him guide you out of your pondering misery!

The “drosophila melanogaster”, also known as “fruit fly”, is a two-winged insect which you commonly find lurking around (over)ripe fruit. For decades it has been one of the most valuable organisms in biological research, particularly in genetics and developmental biology. In the “big encyclopedia of all things queer”, the fruit fly is defined as a straight man who likes to participate in gay life. Apart from his attraction to the juicy side of society, common characteristics of the fruit fly include: impeccable clothing, a gentle disposition, a refined character and no fear of intimate behaviour between people of the same sex.
This episode of QAF Beijing is all about these evolved creatures, pioneers of the modern tolerant society. We’ve carefully selected some specimens, including three flies of foreign origin and Song Pengfei, the first Chinese national to publicly come out as an HIV-positive person. They’ll tell you about their buzzings inside of gay society and they’ll explain how they can resist biting into all the magnificent fruits surrounding them.

Homosexuality + religion = a difficult and dangerous mix.
Difficult because religious leaders everywhere are using dogmatic interpretations of their faith to exclude gay people from their communities. Dangerous because some state governments support these dogmatic views and actively hunt down the queers: in Iran for example two 18 year old gay boys were hanged to death and in the northern regions of Nigeria gay people can be sentenced to death by stoning under the current law.
Gays are the ultimate sinners for the millions of people who are blindly following these dogmatic views. Yet isn’t hatred a sin as well? And what about cruelty? Come to think of it, didn’t God create all of mankind in His Own image? So how come in the eyes of these believers gay people are wrong from the minute they were born? Our two guests of this episode of QAF Beijing, a gay Muslim from Xinjiang and a gay Jew studied in Xinjiang, have come across these questions and contradictions more than often. They had to defend their sexual identity to their fellow believers and they had to explain to their gay friends why it’s important for them to belong to a religious group. We’ll listen to them as they talk about their struggles to combine their gay and religious identities.

From Hua Mulan who donned a military uniform and took the place of her father in the army to theatre master Mei Lanfang performing “drunken beauty”: cross-dressing has a thrilling and dramatic history in China both on and off the stage. The list of Chinese cross-dressers is staggering, including names such as Zhu Yingtai, Chou En-lai, Leslie Cheung, Brigitte Lin, Cecilia Yip and Li Yugang.
For a lot of people cross-dressing is a glamorous drug. When they dress up, they shed their natural selves and enter the fabulous realm of ‘drag’. These gender benders disregard male and female. They’re neither man nor woman yet they are both sexes at the same time. Unpredictable, focused, self-confident, passionate and charming, they are gender revolutionaries who use new ways to communicate with this old world.
QAF Beijing had the good fortune to meet two blue-eyed and blond-haired drag queens – they are the bright shining stars of this week’s episode, strutting their stuff, talking the talk and showing what they got. And that’s a hell of a lot more than Mother Nature gave them.

“I have two Dads. They wash my clothes, they make me breakfast. They are also my Mums. If people ask me why I have two Dads, I just shrug…” These are the words of a new children’s song from Holland. Children are a timeless subject and a challenge that can take over your entire life. They laugh and cry, and piss and crap just like us, except they can’t control it. They can rob us of the time to have a drink, and even stop us caring about our appearances. They can make us cry, and make us painfully aware that we’re already over the hill. But none of this stops even the most youthful and flamboyant of gays longing for a child. There are many ways to do it: have one yourself, have someone else have one for you, adopt one, have one for someone else, get one at a sperm bank, ask a friend to lend a hand, and so on… gays can even turn having a kid into a variety show. But ultimately everyone seems happy for a little karmic retribution for their wild days. QAFBeijing has invited two gay couples, one who want to have a child, and another who are preparing for imminent fatherhood, onto the show. All comrades considering children listen well, don’t be too hasty. Don’t make any decisions until you’ve seen this episode.

Diseases and illnesses have always posed a challenge to the subsistence of mankind. We have all been ill at some point in our lives and we’ve all experienced to some degree the pain which comes from being ill. It leaves us fragile and in need of the soothing comfort of others. HIV-positive people not only have to face the pain of being ill, they also have to face a society which discriminates against them. Although HIV is just a virus, society has been treating it as something vile. Misinformation about HIV is rampant, and people are caught up in irrational fear of the virus. The best way to solve this issue is to help people to know and understand the truth about HIV and AIDS.
In this episode of QAF Beijing we’ll talk to grand justice Edwin Cameron, a man who has been praised as a contemporary South-African hero by Nelson Mandela, and Xiaozhou, a down to earth yet inspiring Chinese man living with HIV.
Edwin Cameron is a judge at the South African Supreme Court of Appeal and he is HIV-positive. A sincere and honest man, he speaks with spirited intelligence about his experiences. To start off this episode, we would like to encourage all HIV-positive persons with some of his words: “I’m still the only person holding public office in South African who has chosen to make public my HIV status… I felt I was called to witness. I felt called to account for my survival in a country in which hundreds of thousands were dying unnecessary deaths. I did not feel I could or should remain silent…” —Edwin Cameron

Everyone at some point suffers prejudice. People might say you’re fat, badly dressed, too short, have a bad figure, speak crudely, or aren’t manly enough. It all comes from a conventional perception of what is ‘right’. We would all hope that society could appreciate real diversity in life. After all, each person is an inimitable original. Yet when homosexuals stand up and express this diversity, many people are still unable to accept it. Confucius said 2500 years ago that we should treat others as we would have others treat us. Professor Fang Gang of Beijing’s Forestry University uses his own unique way to tackle prejudice: as part of an open course entitled ‘Hidden Voices’, he has invited a gay man and a lesbian to meet face-to-face with students for dialogue. This episode of QAF Beijing is also an open classroom. Today’s topic: A good man always helps others gain the acceptance he wishes for himself. Discuss.

When we talk about Taiwan, do we really know what kind of a place it is? It may be impossible to define, but what is clear is that Taiwanese gays are already proudly out on the streets wielding the power of the rainbow. What’s also clear is that many of Taiwan’s academics are going all out to improve people’s understanding of gay culture. Of course the fame factor also helps: A-Mei has sung loudly during Taipei Pride, and Ma Ying-jeou has gone deep into the heart of the parade to shake hands and chew the fat with the scantily clad boys. These are just a handful of the people who have encouraged the common man to better understand and support real diversity in Taiwanese society. So what are you waiting for? For those mainland comrades who couldn’t make it all the way out to Taiwan for Pride, there’s the new episode of QAF Beijing, were the hot girls and guys voguing for the crowds are as clear as in real life. But don’t just stare – listen and learn. This is essential viewing for any open minded citizen of the 21st century.

When we say “liberate Taiwan,” what exactly are we liberating? From a diversity point of view, some countrymen may actually think that it’s Taiwan that can do the liberating. After all, Taiwan has gone from being a place where homosexuality was surpressed as fringe subculture to a place that has become renowned for having Asia’s most gay-friendly city — a city where Ma Ying-jeou (current President and former Mayor of Taipei) raised the rainbow flag at the Gay Pride Parade.
We’re all good Chinese boys and girls with a penchant for learning and so today we’re going turn our yearning to learn to 5 professors from Taiwan who have been pioneering in their own fields to improve the lives of the Taiwan LGBT community. In this episode we record the very first dialogue between these 5 experts and their LGBT comrades in the Mainland, where they share their own journeys and the work they’ve undertaken. In our on-site broadcast, good friend of QAF Beijing Fan Popo, takes us on an eye-opening romp through the sights and sounds of Taipei’s gay life.