On Thursday a
Chinese Web site will launch the weekly hour-long Internet
TV show Tongxing Xianglian, or Connecting
Homosexuals, on www.phoenixtv.com, producer Gang
Gang said in a phone interview with the Associated Press.
The Web site is run by the same media company that runs the
Phoenix satellite TV station. Clips from the online
show will be aired on satellite TV..
While gay
people have appeared on Chinese TV shows, this will be
the first show to focus on gay issues and the first to
have an openly gay host, AIDS activist Didier
Zheng. The Beijing-based show is meant to improve
public understanding of Chinese gays, Gang said,
adding, "There are many people in China's gay
community, but people don't have a deep enough
understanding about this community. This community
faces a lot of trouble and difficulties. They face a lot of
pressure."
Gay
people were persecuted after China's 1949 Communist
revolution and condemned as products of decadent
Western and feudal societies. Official attitudes
gradually have changed since the late 1980s, and in
2001 the China Psychiatric Association stopped listing
homosexuality as a mental illness.
The new show will
explore homosexuality from legal, parental, and
sociological perspectives, dealing with issues like same-sex
marriage, Gang said. The program will also feature a
friend-matching segment.
It remains to be
seen if the new show will face censorship. Though the
Communist government promotes Internet use, it has also set
up an extensive surveillance and filtering system to
prevent Chinese from accessing material considered
obscene or politically subversive.
Zheng, 27,
pursued graduate studies in psychology at the Sorbonne and
is now an activist at the Chi Heng Foundation, which
works with AIDS orphans and promotes AIDS prevention.
"I hope to convey my love in caring for gays, my hopes
for them to get better recognition in society," he
said.
Gang noted
that gays in China face less discrimination than in the
West, where criticism of gays stems from Christian beliefs.
"The pressure comes more from the Chinese problem of
saving face," he said. (Min Lee, AP)