THE RICE QUEEN DIARIES This page intentionally left blank 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 This page intentionally left blank 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