Sample Solution

hroughout the history of China, from formation of the monarchy empire 2 thousand years ago, to foundation of the Republic of China in 1912, LGBTQ+ community has never been discriminated or punished, though there was a severe gender segregation. Also, these people were regularly depicted positively or normally in ancient Chinese literature. For example, Cao Xueqin writes in The Dream of the Red Chamber, “Name called Fengyuan, …, Age eighteen or nine, quite loves men, not women.” (Cao, 1791). Homosexuality is widely used in pushing the plot lines and showing the love other than heterosexual in these works. However, according to Lesbians in emergence, around the end of the empire in the early 20th century, with the emergence and clash of different philosophical and psychological views towards love and sex, people started to relate sex to the devil, especially the same-sex relationship (Sang, 2014). And this is the time when the story of Farewell my Concubine began.
Farewell my Concubine is a Chinese film directed by Chen Kaige in 1993, talking about the life of a queer/gay character Chen Dieyi from 1930s to 1977 and how he was challenged tremendously by the historical and political situation. This film shows the life and feeling of being LGBTQ+ community in contemporary China. And the comments and background of this film can help to analyze how people’s concepts, opinions and reactions towards this group of people changing overtime.
In the scene of young Dieyi learning Peking Opera, he intentionally said the line “I’m a male youth by nature, not a beautiful woman” as “I’m a beautiful woman by nature, not a male youth” no matter how severely he would be punished, showing his gender identity. At the same time, he showed his sexual orientation by showing his obsession and admire to his partner Duan Xiaolou. Dieyi could do anything because of him, including trying to be a woman. Here lies an important misconception that Chinese people always made: Confusing the gender identities with sexual orientation. It’s true that some people, for instance, may be born to be a man who uses she series pronouns and has sexual and romantic love towards man. However, in many Chinese people’s minds, the gender identity of gays, lesbians and more must be different from the origin of someone’s own. They think that in a pair of same-sex couple, there must be different roles imitating the relationship between a heterosexual couple and one of them must be feminine. Also, there is no trace that the education in China has ever covered any knowledge of this kind. Speaking of the representation of Dieyi’s identity in film, he is the person who doesn’t know clearly about what he is because of the lack of knowledge that time and the social and political repression. However, he knows that he is different from other people in some ways which were ambiguously included somewhere in sex. Therefore, he dared to challenge others and spoke out loud about his difference when he was young. And he was brave to express his love openly to the person he loved—Duan Xiaolou.