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A participant at the Jing Pride party in Solana Saturday.
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Hundreds of gay Beijingers, sporting rainbow brooches or tattoos with the Chinese character "Jing," celebrated Beijing's second Gay Pride party on Saturday with live performances, including singing and drag queen shows.
Despite not having a proper parade, the day-long Jing Pride festival, held at Langtung Thai Bar in Solana, Chaoyang district, attracted a crowd heavy on expatriates and English speakers as well as local Chinese.
"We have gay pride in Europe, the US, Hong Kong and Shanghai so we thought, why not Beijing? Beijing is so modern and so cosmopolitan," organizer Grace Su told the Global Times.
"We actually got the permission in advance. We don't want trouble with the police," Su explained. "Of course, we didn't say it would be a Gay Pride party, we said it would be a charity show."
The Pride events, which aim to increase the visibility of the country's lesbian and gay community, also included traditional Chinese songs, lucky draws and dance performances featuring drag queens, several of whom had agreed to glam up just for fun.
However, for some Chinese gay people, the party was not that interesting, as the majority of partygoers were foreign.
"Most Chinese lesbians did not show up tonight because they had no idea the party was happening. They only advertised in English," one reveler told the Global Times.
Yang Ziguang, coordinator of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Center, told the Global Times it is difficult to organize such an event almost anywhere in the world.
In January, police in Beijing shut down China's first Mr Gay China contest, organized by local gay PR and event management group Gayographic, citing a "lack of official paperwork."
"Unlike Mr Gay China, which was held to select a person to represent China, tonight's party is non-political. People just came to have fun, that's why it did not attract trouble," Yang said.
It's not the first Gay Pride event to be organized in Beijing. In 2005, a gay culture festival was shut down by police despite having "one foot in the closet," according to Su.
"I am glad the party didn't get canceled tonight. I think China is opening up to gay culture," Patrick Sum, one of the drag artists, told the Global Times.
Sum, an art student from Texas, studies Chinese painting in Beijing, and was excited when he heard a gay pride party was to be held in the capital.
"Our professor wants us to stay out of trouble, but hey! We are here to study Chinese culture, aren't we?" Sum said.
Sunday, no police showed up in uniform to crash the party.
As recently as 2001, homosexuality was classified as a mental illness in China. Experts estimate that the number of gay people in China could be as many as 30 million, many of whom remain closeted due to pressure from their families and society.
While LGBT events have previously run smoothly in China, for example Gayographic have organized several in Solana before, last year, police gave the organizers of China's first ever Gay Pride event a hard time, said Charlene Liu, Shanghai Pride's organizer, who flew to Beijing to join the party.
Despite overcoming bureaucratic resistance, the second Shanghai Gay Pride party has been delayed until October 16-24, allegedly to make way for the Shanghai World Expo 2010, although this was denied by one organizer, who told the Global Times the delay was simply to align their festivities with similar events globally.
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