Photo: Courtesy of Destination
By Yin Yeping
There are few outward clues to the identity of the community gradually forming around Gongti Xilu in Chaoyang district, but ask a member of a staff at one of the local bars and restaurants, and you may hear a surprising answer. "Every Friday and Saturday night, gay people going to Destination [a well-known Beijing gay club] gather here for dinner," said a waitress at a nearby restaurant Bellagio.
Edmund Yang, owner of Destination, said he knows his club is not for everyone, but Yang said the current market is not as diverse as it should be. "Of course the gay market will never be as massive as the ordinary one in [terms of] type and scale," Yang admitted.
In addition to Destination - which has expanded from a small single-story club in 2004 to a two-story megaplex complete with courtyard and multiple bars - mainstream bars such as Alfa and Mesh now have regular LGBT nights (see Gay-Jing, August 6 2010).
In 2009, blog-based private organization Gayographic was formed to promote gay culture and parties in Beijing. American co-founder Ryan Dutcher is optimistic about the growth of the market: "In a city of 22 million people, there must be many gay people here," he observed, estimating the actual number may be between 5 to 10 percent of the population. According to statistics in the latest edition of Gay Spot magazine, even if the expenditures of each homosexual were presumed at one yuan per person, then the total amount was already 40 million yuan.
Dutcher compares the omnipresence of Destination as having a "Microsoft effect" on other gay venues, effectively trumping any competition in the nightclub market. Despite this, venues not aimed at the dance market can still thrive. "This is why bars like Mesh are popular on Thursday," said Dutcher. "I think, for now, Beijing needs [a] gay bar… where people can go and drink any night of the week, or before they go to Destination."
"More businesses are interested in organizing gay events," said Fan Popo, the executive director of Beijing LGBT Center. Dutcher confirmed by taking the example of Lan Club, which is expecting them to keep holding events there. Fan thinks that the Pink Yuan is stronger here than in other cities and towns, where the lifestyle struggles to find acceptance. Therefore, more gay people come to Beijing looking for jobs.
In places like Los Angeles and San Francisco for instance, the concept of a gay community has been long established. In the US, with a population of 300 million, the so-called "Dorothy Dollar" is worth an estimated $350 billion. Nowadays, even conservative India is ahead on its pink economy. One report by China National Radio this August reported that New Delhi now has 15 gay bars, 10 times more than in 2008.
Yet there are still barriers ahead: Homosexuals are still grouped with prostitution, sexual perversion and rape in moral standards concerning public broadcasting issued by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television in 2008. Despite such official obstacles, NGOs like the Beijing LGBT Center, gay media like Aibai (an information clearing-house for Chinese gays and lesbians) and Gay Spot (first issued in 2007 and still the only gay male magazine in China) as well as recent success like the low-key but popular Jing Pride 2010 celebrations, are indisputable signs of Beijing's gradual openness. In future, all our interviewees agreed, many more privately-owned businesses will be willing to join the market and develop a proper community the city can be truly proud of.
