The rice queen diaries a memoir

254 Pages·2008·13.734 MB·English

by  Gawthrop, Daniel

THE RICE QUEEN DIARIES
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THE RICE QUEEN
DIARIES
a memoir
Daniel Gawthrop
ARSENAL PULP PRESS
VANCOUVER
THE RICE QUEEN DIARIES
Copyright © 2005 by Daniel Gawthrop
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form by any means -
graphic, electronic, or mechanical - without the prior written permission of the publisher, except
by a reviewer, who may use brief excerpts in a review, or in the case of photocopying in Canada, a
license from Access Copyright.
ARSENAL PULP PRESS
341 Water Street, Suite 200
Vancouver, BC
Canada V6B 1B8
arsenalpulp.com
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the
British Columbia Arts Council for its publishing program, and the Government of Canada
through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for its publishing activities.
Text and cover design by Shyla Seller
Cover painting by Nhan duc Nguyen
All photographs and illustrations courtesy of the author, except for page 43 photo courtesy of
Walter Quan and page 89 photo courtesy of Thai Van Tran
Film still on page 33 from Chinese Characters by Richard Fung, reproduced with permission
This is a work of non-fiction, but some names have been changed to protect individuals' privacy.
Efforts have been made to locate copyright holders of source material wherever possible. The
publisher welcomes hearing from any copyright holders of material used in this book who have
not been contacted.
Printed and bound in Canada
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Gawthrop, Daniel, 1963-
The rice queen diaries / by Daniel Gawthrop.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 1-55152-189-X
1. Gawthrop, Daniel, 1963- 2. Gay men—Canada—Biography. 3. Gay
men—Asia. 4. Asians. I. Title.
HQ75.8.G39A3 2005 306.76'62'092 C2005-903688-5
for
Saw Aung Htwe Nyunt Lay
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Contents
Preface 9
Imprinting
I Skeletons 17
II Echoes 25
III Initiations 33
IV Hongcouver 43
Yellow Fever
V Fascination 53
VI Monogamy 65
VII Butterflies 79
VIII Diasporama 89
I, Sex Tourist
IX City of Angels 101
X On the Beach 115
XI Thais that Bond 131
XII Economies of Love 145
Good Evening,Vietnam
XIII Snapshot: Saigon 163
IXV Kieu & Cai 177
Going Native
XV Instant Expat 195
XVI Houseboy Blues 209
XVII Purification Rites 223
XVIII Corruption of the Heart 233
IXX Coming Home 243
Acknowledgments 251
A man lives not only his personal life, as an individual, but also,
consciously or unconsciously, the life of his epoch and his contemporaries.
- Thomas Mann
Truthful contact between nations and lovers can only be the result of
heroic effort. Those who prefer to bypass the work involved will remain
in a world of surfaces, misperceptions running rampant.
- David Henry Hwang
Preface
ONE NIGHT IN SAIGON DURING THE SPRING OF 2000,1 was browsing through a
silk boutique near the Rex Hotel when I spotted the perfect kimono: one of
those shiny, reversible gowns with the Chinese-style embroidery and fancy
dragon design on the back. I thought it was charmingly flamboyant - the
kind you'd wear lounging about in the study with a gin martini - so I bought
it. Back home in the West, my fellow Caucasians offered a more sobering
assessment of that gown. "It's a smoking jacket," smiled a friend, "like the one
that dreadful Rice Queen wore in The Year of Living Dangerously.''''
Later, when I happened to be watching a rented video of the 1982 film,
it struck me that Wally O'Sullivan - the character my friend was referring to,
a middle-aged correspondent for the Sydney Herald - never once appears in a
kimono. Had my friend confused him with a similar character from another
film? Perhaps. But it's more likely that two fleeting hints of Wally's sexuality-
his tender caress of a young Indonesian waiter serving him a late-night drink,
and a scene in which he's accused by the film's protagonist/narrator of "using
boys for pleasure" - had provided enough stereotypical coding to peg him as
a "dreadful Rice Queen." A kimono would have completed the caricature.
The term "Rice Queen" is a product of contemporary western gay vernacular.
It refers to a man, usually Caucasian, who is sexually attracted to men of Far
East - including Southeast - Asian origins. Like his heterosexual equivalent,
the Rice Queen is drawn to youthful, androgynous features typical of the
"Oriental" look: smooth brown skin, black hair, and broad faces with high
cheekbones, elongated ("slanted") eyes, and porcelain-perfect lips. Along
with the physical attraction is an obsession with all things Asian: from cuisine
and home decor to history, culture, religion, and spirituality. Many Rice
Queens, after travelling to the Far East, return with planeloads of Asian
knick-knacks.
Where does this attraction come from? How is it that sexual preference
9