Ties Van De Werff's Influence On Gays

Ties van de Werff indicates that “continuing the bloodline” by marrying a woman and then having a son, is the “most important traditional values in China”, and has significant influence on gays in China. (Werff 2010, 173) Highly influenced by Confucianism, getting married and having a child in a proper age is not an option, but a strict requirement of every men in Sinosphere. Wang, Bih, and Brennan point out that, “According to Taiwanese custom, unmarried adults are not yet grown-up.” (Wang, Bih, Brennan) Such a traditional responsibility approaches gays of Sinosphere as a restriction from continuously pursuing their natural sexuality throughout their lives, and forces them to marry women. In the conversation with Stephen at the gay club, …show more content…
Since he already has a son, Awan, Wei-Chung avoids any further sexual intercourse with his wife, and thus the couple lacks any means to satisfy the their sexual desire. (Chen) On Feng’s side, she receives pressure of bearing one more child from her mother, and therefore attempts to have sex with Wei-Chung, but only finds him unresponsive, possibly for this reason, Feng often has a rather exhausted facial expression throughout the movie. (Chen) Their dissatisfaction becomes more apparent in the scene where Wei-Chung receives kiss from Thomas and then suddenly levitates in ecstasy. (Chen) This is not the first occasion of levitation in this movie. At the beginning of the film, Wei-Chung’s boss promotes him to a manager and then leaves his job, explaining that he had been in the job for more than thirty years and now he feels that his career finds its end. (Chen) When leaving the store he worked for such a long time, the boss levitates in a very content smile, as if becoming liberated from all of the constraints which kept him from being happy. (Chen) Although momentarily, In his scene of levitation, Wei-Chung also seems to have a feeling of liberation his boss had earlier. In here, Wei-Chung’s liberation would be from his unnatural marriage and from his responsibilities as a patriarch and as a decent citizen who conforms to the social …show more content…
However, it is truly questionable if the movie’s ending is actually happy. Looking at the facts in this movie, one can find that the marriages between homosexual men and heterosexual women is extremely unfair to the women. Feng divorces after a long married life, with Wei-Chung who lied to her and attempted to conceal his sexuality indefinitely but failed after 9 years of marriage. (Chen) As a result, Feng loses 9 years of her life for a marriage that cannot sustain. In addition, she witnesses her husband’s extra-marital relationship with another man. (Chen) Such an encounter can severely damage one’s self-respect and may remain as a traumatic memory throughout whole life. On the other hand, Wei-Chung gains significantly more than he lost from his marriage and divorce. Although he suffers from attempting to maintain a marriage and a family going against his sexual nature, he must have had an opportunity to please his parents before their death, by marrying a woman and bearing a son to continue his bloodline, in accordance to the social norm of the Sinosphere. In addition, by having such a norm-conforming marriage and family, he avoids any social stigma towards homosexuality. With the divorce, he is now freed from the sexually unsatisfying relationship with Feng, and enabled to reunite with Thomas as he pleases. While the happy ending seems quite feasible in Wei-Chung’s case, but not quite in the case