#danmei history

[ineffable-opinions]

Masculinities and Male Androphilia

Wu-Wen

Masculinity in China historically has been (mostly) classified into Wu-type (military - type) and Wen-type (scholarly - type).

Qing dynasty Chinese Water and Land Ritual painting depicting a divine civil official and thunder god in military regalia.

Due to the special nature of Chinese political system (imperial court & civil services), scholar wielded power and influence, often over-taking that of military men. [What about dudes who were neither scholars nor military personnel?]

Wen-wu type masculinities make for some really interesting contrast and is employed in media: BL and others.

Shi Qiang and Wang Miao representing wen and wu respectively in Three-Body (2023) based on the sci-fi novel "The Three-Body Problem" (三体) by Liu Ci Xin (刘慈欣) .

Colonialism flipped this order. It was internalized by the subjects of colonialism too. Its lasting impact can be seen in the recent effeminacy ban* in China’s entertainment industry targeting little fresh meat (xiao xianrou 小鮮肉 ) and pretty boy (huamei nan 花美男) aesthetics.

*sissy pants (niangpao 娘炮)

Protest masculinity

Against (both organic and stereotyped) association of femme-presentation or ‘camp’ with androphilia. Popular opinion inculcated by media is partially responsible.

2. Against a society that doesn’t treat them as equal men. Hegemonic masculinity is constructed in opposition with ‘inferior men’ such as androphilic men and more importantly with women. By adopting visual Wu-masculinity, androphilic men hijacks the visuals, rendering the visual categorization redundant.

3. For gaydar purposes - signaling to men who are androphilic and them alone.

This is not without negative impact:

It can lead to peer-pressure to conform & homogenize to Wu-ideal to the extent that other presentations could get vilified. This can include scorning of soft and delicate aesthetics and femme-bashing.

2. Conforms with the mainstream view – both that of their present-day oppressors, mainly the Wu-exalting, heterosexist, sissy-phobic State and their historic oppressors: colonialism and its modern-day offsprings.

Similar tendencies are observed among androphilic men in Japan, South Korea and Thailand as well.

Recommendations [occasionally updated]

Cheers by Cheers 짠!하면 알 수 있어 [not available currently]

Breakfast by 想再見你

Sesame by 百里屠伕

Shimbashi Koi Story by SHIMBASHI TUGBOAT

-

Thai Masculinities

Posts: one two three

To learn more:

Wang, S. (2020). Chinese gay men pursuing online fame: erotic reputation and internet celebrity economies. Feminist Media Studies, 20(4), 548–564. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2020.1754633

Wijngaarden JW de L van. Male Homosexuality in 21st-Century Thailand: A Longitudinal Study of Young, Rural, Same-Sex-Attracted Men Coming of Age. Anthem Press; 2021. [link]

Interpretation and Orientalism: Outing Japan’s Sexual Minorities to the English-Speaking World by Mark McLelland

[fateandloveentwined]

wuxia and confucianism

Hey. Thought I'd answer the wuxia-confucian question very briefly. I did suggest wuxia being closely knitted to confucianism, but I do understand the other perspective of wuxia being anti-confucian. Quick answer only because I've got little time right now -- might add on to it later!!

confucianism

First the central themes of confucianism:

常 (cháng): Virtues of compassion and courtesy. 仁 (rén)、义 (yì)、礼 (lǐ)、智 (zhì)、信 (xìn)、忠 (zhōng)、孝 (xiào)、悌 (tì) (there are more). These in order in crude translation mean compassion, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom, integrity, loyalty, filial piety, and respect to one's older siblings. These are the main ideas Confucius, the founder of Confucianism, wished to spread through his philosophy.

纲 (gāng): Order. This is about the relationships between people, the filial piety of a child to their parents, the relationship between significant others, between friends and teachers, and expanding outwards in the sphere of influence in our circle of life, the patriotism and loyalty of a liege to his lord.

Understand that Confucius came up with these ideas in a time of war. He lived his life traversing different kingdoms and establishing his prominence by getting emperors to trust him as a consultant and employ his school of ideas. As such, these beliefs are very much centred around creating harmony and order in society, and of course entails the respect of commoners and lieges to their lords (because why else would kings employ his beliefs over other schools of philosophy if not so?).

wuxia

Moving on to the wuxia genre, the 侠 (xiá) in wuxia emphasises righteousness. xia, as people, are itinerants and rebels in the fictitious pugilistic society who tire of the power of the aristocracy and seek to use their own, often unlawful ways, to help others through 锄强扶弱 (chú qiáng fú ruò) -- helping the needy and going against the strong (the morals are debatable but that's me trying to sum up wuxia in 5 minutes off the top of my head rip).

conclusions

So I guess that's enough information for you to form your own conclusions, and here's what I think, at the very least.

Against Confucianism -- Subverting the power pyramid. Many of the heroes/xia's in wuxia are lawless rebels. They aren't good, upstanding citizens of the society. Hell, xia was first popularised from 游侠列传 (yóu xiá liè zhuàn) in the Han dynasty records, talking about how a "xia" went against the officials and helped the commoners in the name of righteousness. This goes against the confucian beliefs of respecting your lord and serving the kingdom.* That's why I can understand why some would consider wuxia going against confucianism.

Align with Confucianism -- Righteousness. Ultimately, however, wuxia is about righteousness and nobility and honour, defined by society and commoners and not by royal blood. These values of etiquette, decorum, and nobility were long ingrained in the hearts of all these chinese characters, from when the courtesy and etiquette rules were defined in the Zhou dynasty, and afterwards, from the Han dynasty on, when emperors heavily employed Confucian beliefs in education and throughout society because it helps in rebuilding a harmonious society.

Confucianism is about compassion and righteousness, the staples permeating and defining chinese culture in the last two thousand years, and it is these values that serve as the central impetus of the xia and wuxia genres. People are born into these values; as such they fight against the injustice they see, and thus engenders the lost xia's of every dynasty.

*And well, even Confucius wasn't that dead set on fealty to lords. Confucian highly venerated loyalty, but when the court is corrupt, they acknowledge insurgence over the mindless following of an emperor. This is a story for another day, one I would have to back up with more quotes and citations, but I hope this answered your questions, or even better, let you form some conclusions of your own :)

Confucian philosophy is only one aspect that has correlations/influences over the "xia" genre, there are many other interesting things to say about Taoism and Buddhism as well (e.g. Jin Yong's wuxia classics have quite a bit of Buddhist values in the characters owing to author preferences), it's definitely worth looking up on these things if you're interested!

initially reblogged under the original meta post on wuxia, xianxia, and cultivation differences, but i realised it was too long and would bury the reply, so please don't mind me creating a new post for this again.

feel free to ask and discuss!!

[panfrances7u7]

Giant’s hair is silky ✨ AND HE HAS HORNS! featuring my characters from a book I’writting inspired by Chinese mythology :3

[czikpisia]

Lan Zhaaaan!

[dragonsandphoenix]

Thoughts while reading books about Ancient Yaoi

Don't mind me, just word vomiting. Now I'm reading more on the history of homoerotic literature in China and I really can't help linking them to my understanding on danmei written in the modern times. I'm becoming more certain that relationships in BL, especially classic BL are more based on the pre-modern model of male love, where homosexuality wasn't an orientation and homoerotic relationships were normatively ideal between an older man and a pubescent youth. The younger man, of which the modern uke/shou is modeled after is feminized but is thought of as distinct from women. Femininity isn't so much about womanhood but about sexual submission. This was the model of homoerotic relationships that would have been seen in many cultures including Ancient Greece, Ottoman Turkey, Feudal Japan and Imperial China before we entered the modern era. For the past 300 years understandings of sexuality shifted in the West, but it appears they didn't really in China up until the 20th century, after which there was a century of suppression, then China opened up to globalization.

How does all this contextualize danmei? Well a lot has been said that danmei isn't necessarily supposed to be LGBT media, at least not in the same way Western queer media is. The reality is danmei does draw from different influences including anime/manga, Western pop culture and Chinese classical literature among other things. My thought is that I would imagine it would be hard to completely discard the pre-modern understandings of male/male relationships in art, similar to gender roles. After all they have only been suppressed for a century. Which is a long time but relative to China's history, isn't that long. People are still bringing up "cut-sleeve" and that was so 2000 years ago man. That being said, nowadays there are distinct differences between modern danmei and homoerotic literature from back then:

Monogamous relationships are king. No more offering your wife to your bro in exchange for his ass sir.

LGBT identities are a thing. Western cultural hegemony for the win.

A more egalitarian model for relationships. At least compared to back then, age gap relationships with underage boys are not nearly as normalized. Really Bingqiu and Ranwan are a step up, they at least get together in their adulthood. Same goes for class status (at least couples with class differences won't automatically end tragically).

Related to number 3, the popularity of 年下 and tropes like shizunfucker. The overturning of power dynamics based on age and social ranking would have been anathema to the rich literati of back then.

No conclusion to draw here, but imagine how future scholars would view danmei now, and what that says about society.

Further Reading:

The Libertine's Friend: Homosexuality and Masculinity in Late Imperial China by Giovanni Vitiello

The Dragon's Whim: Ming and Qing Homoerotic Tales from "The Cut Sleeve" by Giovanni Vitiello

Was China Part of a Global Eighteenth-Century Homosexuality? by Matthew H. Sommer

The Daoist Art of the Bedchamber of Male Homosexuality in Ming and Qing Literature by Wanrong Zhang

All interesting reads. The last one makes mention of the first recorded fujoshi (or I guess 腐女), who wrote the only complete novel on male homosexuality written by a woman in ancient China, "with 52 chapters and 1.8 million words" (MXTX got nothing on her good god).

[gemaesteria]

Podfic: the world is a postcard (and I imagine the story we're writing on it) - [Hualian, TGCF]

Written by: @callmefoxypepsi

Read by: Me

Summary:

Bookstore AU where Hua Cheng and Xie Lian share a rainy day inside 'Puji shop, old books & gifts'. Expect cozy vibes, creative crisis, artist's struggles, postcard sorting, a supportive gege and just a hint of pining. Don't worry, The Ache of Separation makes a cameo and saves the day. Inspired by the fic "something beautiful" by Yingfish.

Listen here 🎧

[kammartinez]

Shen Yi had given him enough of his attention. “You ought to give him a few days of peace and quiet,” he said perfunctorily. “Stop pestering him with tactics you use to butter up concubines and give him time to calm down on his own.” “I don’t have concubines,” said Gu Yun. “That’s right,” Shen Yi sneered, “You don’t even have a wife.” Gu Yun kicked him.

from Stars of Chaos (Sha Po Lang) Vol. 1, by priest

[kamreadsandrecs]

Title: Stars of Chaos (Sha Po Lang), Vol. 2

Author: priest

Genre/s: danmei, historical, alternate history, steampunk

Content/Trigger Warning/s: war, death, depictions of chronic illness and implied mental instability

Summary (from publisher's website): Four years ago, Chang Geng and Gu Yun parted in anger. When fate draws them together again, Chang Geng, a once-awkward teen, is now an elegant and adroit young man.

But storms lie ahead. As Great Liang faces foreign pressure from without, Gu Yun finds himself embroiled in turmoil within the imperial court. Meanwhile, as the curse in Chang Geng’s blood grows, his feelings for his godfather become more painful to subdue by the day. How much longer can he keep Gu Yun from learning his secret…and what will happen when he can hide it no more?

Buy Here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/stars-of-chaos-sha-po-lang-novel-vol-2/18879407

Spoiler-Free Review: This was a DELIGHT! The stakes are so much higher now than they were before - both in terms of world events, and the relationship between Gu Yun and Chang Geng.

First, on the happy(?) couple: they are not happy. At all. In fact, they are VERY confused, ESPECIALLY about their own feelings, and it is simultaneously hilarious and DELIGHTFULLY frustrating. Gu Yun is ESPECIALLY guilty of this, as Chang Geng seems to understand his own emotions much better than he did in the first volume. The trouble with Chang Geng is that he has the wu’ergu to deal with, and so frequently has to tamp down his feelings lest they get out of hand - which is certainly NOT helped by Gu Yun having the emotional comprehension of a toddler when anything concerns Chang Geng. This means that he has a tendency to miscommunicate with Chang Geng, who THEN interprets Gu Yun’s statements entirely differently.

This stands in direct contrast to the way they work together during a crisis. Whenever something dangerous or deadly happens, they are in near-perfect synch. Gu Yun stands up front as the feared and revered Marquis of Anding, leader of the Black Iron Battalion, while Chang Geng acts in the background as the mild-mannered, seemingly innocuous Prince Yanbei, using his knowledge and carefully cultivated connections in the jianghu to ensure that any and all of Gu Yun’s plans succeed. Chang Geng’s almost uncanny ability to know what Gu Yun will do next (something that unnerves even Gu Yun himself), and Gu Yun’s own trust and faith in Chang Geng, make this partnership work, as two major events near the beginning and near the end of this volume show.

While Gu Yun and Chang Geng’s interactions are thoroughly entertaining, the events that happen around them and push them to work together are just as fascinating, and really show off the worldbuilding the author is capable of. While there was plenty of steampunk imagery in the previous volume, there is even more of that in this volume, with larger and deadlier machines coming into play, especially towards the latter end of this volume. Interestingly, the consequences are brought sharply into view as well, with the use of the farming machines mentioned in the previous volume playing a key role in the events of the first half of this volume.

There are also clear parallels drawn to actual Chinese history: specifically, that period in history when European colonial powers were racing against each other to “open” China to trade with the West. The author appears to be trying a kind of “what if?” scenario with this series, playing around with the events of actual history and filtering it all through a steampunk lens. And so far, the author seems to be handling it very well, though whether or not Great Liang’s own colonial push in the lands of the “barbarian” tribespeople will be addressed remains to be seen.

Overall, this volume more than lives up to the promise of its predecessor. It progresses the relationship between Gu Yun and Chang Geng in a way that’s supremely entertaining, while also incorporating the progress of said relationship with the events of the wider world they inhabit. With events ending on a bit of a cliffhanger in this volume, I’m definitely looking forward to seeing what happens in the third volume once I get my hands on it.

Rating: five iron arrows

[enden-k]

anw is now the time to bark about yet another bfs turned exes/enemies ship i got into

[gentil-minou]

Hi! Please vote for wangxian in the @ao3topshipsbracket we are losing for a small percentage and it is gonna close in 6 hours

i have!!! but maybe a kind follower will aid us in our time of need!

[ineffable-opinions]

"Top", "Bottom" Discussion in Unknown ep. 12

The Office Gossip Scene

[Edited on 10th May; changes under clarification headings]

Now that the Unknown has resurrected the conversation about gong shou, let’s talk about it. The what and the why, so to say. Thank you @1serotonindeficientgirl (whose post inspired mine).

I welcome critiques and corrections. So, please feel free to do so.

Scenes and subtitles

The discussion in the episode starts with Wei Qian’s staff gossiping about his relationship with Wei ZhiYuan. One of the staff members comments that Wei Qian is like a little lamb (小绵羊) when it comes to his little brother:

只��遇到他弟弟 就像小绵羊

Someone replies with the following idiom:

羊入虎口

(Literally: “a sheep enters a tiger's mouth”)

It means to enter a dangerous situation where one will certainly suffer [Source: Wiktionary].

The female employee (who witnessed their kiss) asks San Pang:

三胖哥谁是羊谁是虎啊 - Who is the lamb (羊; sheep) and who is the tiger (虎)?

This has some employees confused and they ask for an explanation. They receive the following reply:

就是攻跟受的差别啊 – [it means] between them, who is gong and who is shou?

One of the staff members repeats the unfamiliar terms:

攻受 – gong shou

and the fu-nu (腐女; fujoshi) offers an explanation:

好啦姊姊教你们 – let this elder sis explain

老虎看到羊会 – the tiger upon seeing the lamb…

Before she can complete her explanation, Wei Qian moves into the scene accompanied by the growl of a big cat. The gossipers disband.

In the end our fu-nu expresses their support for Wei Qian’s relationship with Wei ZhiYuan. Before she runs off, she throws him the question:

你们谁是攻谁是受啦 – between the two of you, who is gong and who is shou?

In the next shot Wei Qian is alone. He flexes his muscles and comments:

很明显吧 - It's obvious, isn't it?

[END OF SCENE]

Everyone at that office seems pretty close. The staff calls Wei “Qian ge” 谦哥 (first name + brother) and not as “Mr. Wei” (as the English subtitles suggests). Looks like Lao Xiong (emphasis on Lao = old) is the only one who clearly disapproves of such gossipmongering.

Notice how the terms gong and shou were translated directly into top and bottom in English subtitles. While that’s technically correct, there’s some nuance missing.

While there are tongzhi (同志;queer) people who use the terms gong and shou, these are not the most popular terms for top and bottom in the tongzhi community. This series specifically uses the terms gong (攻) and shou (受). Why? We’ll get to that in a minute.

In a BL, being shou means that character is the bottom in that particular ship. That character could be top, bottom, versatile or neither in another ship. A character is a bottom (as we use the term in English) only when that character is an absolute shou (sou uke in Japanese). An absolute shou is invariably shou. No matter which ship he becomes part of and no matter who he is paired with, he will be the shou. Similar difference exists between the terms “top” and “gong”.

English subtitles use ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ from the get-go. There is no need to explain what those terms mean. But that’s not the case with gong shou – only 腐 (fu) people (BL fans) really knows what those terms really mean and thus warrants explanation.   

Clarification

[Edited. Thank you @abstractelysium and @wen-kexing-apologist for contributing to the conversation.]

As noted in the convo, Wei Qian is pretty ferocious in the office and is only gentle when it comes to Wei ZhiYuan. So, it is normal that gossiping irrespective of topic would end as soon as he arrives. Also, I think Wei Qian didn’t get what gong shou means other than allusion to tiger and lamb. The original language dialogues don’t make it clear that gong and shou means top and bottom (in a ship). [The English subs gives off that impression since gong and shou were simply translated.] Moreover, those terms are danmei literacies that has entered dictionaries but not necessarily public knowledge.

It is like an insider joke for fu-people made possible by Wei Qian’s ignorance. That wouldn’t have worked on Wei ZhiYuan who read danmei while growing up. That wouldn’t have worked if the fu nu (fujoshi) stuck around to explain what that means.

Usually in such conversations in BL, fu-people are shown to be mistaken: they either mess up the ship/dynamic (Love By Chance 1) or the character(s) in the ship deliberately trick them (Counter Attack). It is almost always played out with seme/gong’s approval in BL - not sure if that dynamic between fu-people & seme aka gong character ever appeared in any live-action dynamic. The trigger of this scene is Wei ZhiYuan’s deliberate choice of actions: PDA, kiss in the office right in front of a staff member.

BL literacies

BL is a media genre in itself with different sub-genres, genre conventions and classic works. It sure has a lot of overlap with other genres:

Romance as well as GL – they coevolved. They share mothers and other ancestors.

Queer – Is it really a genre? Even if one were to ignore queer as method in academia, it is still so complex.

Let me quote Taiwanese tongzhi author Chiang-Sheng Kuo:

… what exactly is queer literature? Is it queer literature if queer people like to read it, or is it only queer literature if there are queer characters in the books? Or is it an appendage of the queer movement? If a queer author writes a book without queer characters, does that represent a certain aspect of queer culture?

(You can find the whole interview here.)

Just as danmei (耽美; Chinese BL) has its roots in Japanese BL, so is gong (攻) and shou (受) from seme (攻め) uke (受け).

gong shou aka seme uke dynamics

Mother of BL, Mori Mari, didn’t come up with it, nor did her father Mori Ogai. Both she and her father, among the other dozen tanbi (耽美; same writing as danmei but different readings cause different languages, and different meanings cause different cultures) authors inherited it from authors before them who wrote on contemporaneous and historic Japanese male androphilia.

Spring Pastimes. Miyagawa Isshō, c. 1750 | seme uke dynamics in nanshoku pre-dates BL by hundreds of years.

While there is no dearth of riba (versatile) characters in BL, seme uke dynamics is:

a genre specialty. There are similar words in use in GL as well.

an enduring connection to the past of where BL was born.

remnants of a particular model of queerness; an alternative to LGBTQIA+ form of queerness.

What’s there in the scene

There is something hidden in the euphemistic explanation. On the face of it tiger devouring a lamb would be allusion to tiger gong devouring (topping) lamb shou.

But then tiger is a big cat and lamb is a herbivore. Neko (ネコ), the Japanese queer term for “bottom” means cat (etymology is obscure with this one). The term herbivore (草食) when used to describe a man means that man is masculine in a non-hegemonic way. In the series, Wei Qian embodies the hegemonic masculinity while Wei ZhiYuan is a quintessential grass-eater.

So, the description of lamb being devoured by a tiger would not be associated as simply as with the terms gong and shou especially when it comes from Taiwan which has been historically more connected to Japanese BL than any other BL producers (Sinophone or otherwise). This connection was highlighted during 魏之远 Wei ZhiYuan's naming scene where Le Ge used the borrowed Japanese possessive particle (の; no).

の = 之 (zhī)

The big cat sound effect for Wei Qian in particular adds to this. Wei Qian’s character is best described as a queen shou.

女王受 Queen shou: A shou who is as proud as a queen, and would devour gong. (source)

Wei Qian and Wei ZhiYuan’s ship is best described by Priest (the author of Da Ge, source novel of Unknown):

经典款毒舌女王和屁颠屁颠的忠犬组合 – paring of a classic, sharp-tongued queen and a tail-wagging loyal dog.

BL literacies & Affective learning

BL kind of has its own language (with words like gong shou), which fans use to share ideas and feelings. This secret language is what academics call ‘literacies.’ BL fans are all in on this and have their own ‘ways of behaving, interacting, valuing, thinking, believing, speaking, and often reading and writing’. Through ‘various visual, conceptual and textual literacies’, BL fans weave ‘an intertextual database of narrative and visual tropes which readers draw upon to interpret BL’. BL literacies is learnt through ‘affective hermeneutics – a set way of gaining knowledge through feelings.’ Audience learn BL literacies from BL works ‘which eventually leads to their active engagement’ with other BL fans. (source; Kristine Michelle L. Santos explains it in the context of Japanese BL but it applies to all BL media irrespective of where it is from.)

That scene in Unknown was set up to familiarize audience with BL literacies – not only those specific words but also the larger practice of imagining character pairing and indulging in that imagination. This is evident from the overall jubilant tone of the scene and the camera work. It is a celebration of moe. That is why we have a character who is not only a fu-nu but also willing to be openly fu-nu in that setting, sharing BL literacies and her colleagues interested to learn. 

For other examples, check out Thomas Baudinette’s book Boys Love Media in Thailand: Celebrity, Fans, and Transnational Asian Queer Popular Culture. He has a chapter dedicated to explaining how genre conventions were taught to the early audience of Thai BL through similar scenes.

Why must they do this? Why break the fourth wall like this? To get more people interested in the intricacies of BL and to get them to participate in the culture. BL is created by fu-people and BL literacies are their tools and source of joy. BL must draw in more people to keep BL culture going. Commercialized BL we have today is the result of an affective culture formed over the years. It is built on years of labor of authors and their audience. I mean, look at the Unknown. This BL employs the well-developed Loyal Dog gong x Queen shou dynamics. Apart from that which the series took from the novel, it also drew upon other common BL beats to tease the relationship between Dr. Lin and his senior.  

Teaching BL literacies is political. When Mainland Chinese government gets dangai productions to change names and relationships of characters (among other things), it is to prevent live-action audience from discovering BL as a genre with it disruptive potential. It is not only character's names and relationships that are changed. There are entire sub-genres of danmei (such as 高干) that got wiped out by censorship.

When a Taiwanese BL not only retains the character names & relationships and shows relatively explicit intimate scenes but also actively promotes BL literacies, it is an act of resistance. Discussion of gong shou, being genre specialty, manages to do so. Interestingly, they are doing it in an adaptation of a novel by Priest who has a particular reputation with self-censorship. That scene is not part of the source novel.

Heterosexual & gong shou

Association of bottom with the feminine (female or otherwise) has its roots in medicalization (and pathologization) of homosexuality in the west (such as through theories by scientists and doctors like Richard von Krafft-Ebing). This “knowledge” subsequently spread across the globe and was adopted to varying degrees and forms.

Moreover, the terms gong and shou applies to heterosexual pairing too.

BG (boy girl) ships have male gong and female shou

GB (girl boy) ships have female gong and male shou. [If this is interesting unfamiliar territory, check out the series Dong Lan Xue (2023).]

Moreover, if one is willing to look beyond LGBTQIA+ form of queerness (which is born and brought up in America), one can see other queer possibilities. For example, Kothi-Panthi queerness in South Asia which is characterized by explicit presentation of top bottom dynamics. There are very many similar forms of queerness in other parts of Global South.

In many cultures, sexuality doesn’t inform identity but sexual preference does. That’s why is you are to ask a kothi-panthi couple which one of you is the bottom, the kothi would tell you without hesitation: “I am.” Might even asked you in turn, “Couldn’t you tell?” For them, sexual preference (being kothi) rather than sexual orientation takes center stage. This is the inverse of how LGBTQIA+ form of queerness looks at it. While LGBTQIA+ model of queerness focuses on sexual orientation (being pan, ace, gay, etc.) as something that can be freely discussed but sexual preference (top, bottom, versatile, side, etc.) is considered private.

*Just to be clear, “kothi” is a term of self-identification. It means that the person is a bottom. Panthi is not self-identification. That’s how kothi address the men who top them. 

While thanks to westernization LGBTQIA+ form of queerness enjoys more visibility, I think it is better to consider it as one type of queerness rather than the only model of queerness. Gong shou dynamics doesn’t fit into LGBTQIA+ form of queerness because it comes from another, much-older nanshoku model of queerness that made its way into Japan from China, hundreds of years ago. Friction between different models of queerness is common where ever they interact. In 1970s, Japan was witness to public debates between a younger, westernized Japanese queer activist Itō Satoru and other Japanese queer activists such as Fushimi Noriaki and Tōgō Ken who were rooted in indigenous tradition of male-male sexuality.

[Itō Satoru’s] insistence on the necessity of adopting western models of gay identity and coming out have brought him into conflict with other activists such as Fushimi Noriaki and veteran campaigner Tōgō Ken.

Interpretation and Orientalism: Outing Japan's Sexual Minorities to the English-Speaking World by Mark McLelland

Clarification

[Edited. Thank you @wen-kexing-apologist for contributing to the conversation.]

Under the LGBTQ+ model of queerness, it maybe considered inappropriate to have conversation about “top” “bottom”, especially in the office, going as far as to ask that to Qian ge. From that perspective, the BL audience (especially those who are unfamiliar with the terms gong and shou) are fair in their assessment of that scene being out of place or outright offensive.

I think things might have been a bit different if the subtitles retained the terms gong shou instead of “top” “bottom” since they aren’t exactly the same thing. That would have had the desired effect (of introducing BL literacies - gong shou in the context of 强强 (strong gong x strong shou) pairing) without unintended consequence.

What is considered rude under the LGBTQ+ framework is an essential part of fu culture. It is like addressing Wei Qian as just Qian – that could be considered rude in the original language but pretty normal in English. Different cultures, different norms, so to speak. It is only polite to be mindful of the cultural differences and avoid discussing about sexual preference where it is considered inappropriate.

As for the normalization of fu culture (especially discussions of gong shou), in my opinion the didactic scope of Unknown is undermined by the very fact that it is primarily a gǔkē danmei (via adoption (收养)) with tongyangxi vibes (highlighted multiple times by San Pang in the novel) associated with Wei ZhiYuan.

Somehow fu-culture gets judged by those who consume products of that culture. Everyone is happy with fu-cultural products as long as fu-people don't discuss who is gong and who is shou.

Why are fu-culture and BL always judged based on a culturally alien lgbtq+ form of queerness? Why must BL be arm-twisted to fit into norms of lgbtq+ form of queerness just because that is the most mainstream form of queerness?

-

That’s not much a conclusion but this is already so long. I really hope it gives you something to think about.

If you are interested, here's more.

[fateandloveentwined]

City C, University P -- the way modern chinese names places

Alright, you may have come across such initial-based namings in books, danmei and other cnovels: City S, University P, C市 (City C), S大 (University S)

-- is it lazy translation? why aren't they giving places actual names?

A tad bit of informal history below:

When did it start?

As a person very much inexperienced in chinese historical literature, I couldn't say for sure either. But what I do know, is that it has been in writing since the 20th century (around the 1920s and after). You see renowned writers of that time like Lu Xun 鲁迅 and Zhu Ziqing 朱自清 using these initials.

(I don't have concrete examples in mind, so I'm flipping about what I have around me, and Zhu Ziqing and Lu Xun's books happen to be near me so -- let me use their works as examples of the day.)

There's this novella Lu Xun wrote, with a protagonist which he named 阿Q (read as "Ah-Q"). I also see in his short stories that he named a dog S, a side character 小D (Little D), and a city S城 (City S).

Zhu Ziqing tends to write more about realistic things that happen in his life in the form of short writings, and for that reason he uses initials way less. He did refer to a person by "Y" in one of the pieces though.

So what are they doing?

So around that time of Lu Xun (we're in the republican era) there's a movement called the May Fourth Movement, and out of the movement it spurred in the literary realm the New Culture Movement. I honestly don't want to go into the details and confuse everyone with my inexperience here, what is worth noting is that they began promoting "modern chinese" (白话 bái huà) over "classical chinese" (文言 wén yán). "Modern chinese" is the kind of chinese you read in cnovels and everywhere else nowadays.

And in this movement, they also advocated quite a lot of western ideas. This is where they proposed a complete romanisation of chinese characters, and probably to do with this, in their new modern chinese writings, they started using anglicised phrases like "City Y" and "Dog S".

All movements are controversial, their failure or success is controversial, I really don't want to get into past history so let's move on.

What they use now.

When journalling one's own experiences, important places and all that, obviously real places and names are used. Otherwise, in fiction, alphabetic initials are used in place, likely to 1. distance fiction from real life, and also I suppose nowadays 2. to avoid heated topics. For instance china may be referred to as 华国 (Huá guó), which probably makes things less sensitive and easier to handle.

again i really don't want to get into nations and stuff. let me literary-this meta out in peace.

How can I understand where means where?

It took me a while to get used to them, basically sometimes you can guess the place -- City B may be Beijing, C could be Chongqing, S could be Shanghai -- the big metropolitan cities. University T and P (or Q and B) would be Tsinghua and Peking University.

As for the other names, when they say University A or High School No. 1 it usually means the top school in the area, because (at least for high schools) that's how quite a number of schools are named. If you couldn't tell what the letter represents, it's probably a random one.

additional note: these initials are only used in modern and futuristic sci-fi novels (at least from what I've seen so far!) using letters in historical or historical fantasy ones would break the fourth wall quite a bit for me haha.

Addendum

See Guardian article linked in the comments should you be interested.

Some points of note, made up places have been used in other fiction too, to avoid trespassing geographical localities and cultures aboriginal to a group of people;

Russian novels also have used mysterious initials -- "in the town of P", this is in the 19th and 20th century -- so it may well have come from Russia instead of literature under greco-roman influence (excuse the terrible description) -- but likely it did result from the movements, that's what instigated modern chinese writing in the first place.

(yeah it's on my lack of russian classics perusal -- i'll rectify that some time.)

[deepfriedscallops]

A Personal Guide to Chinese Names (Specifically Historical)

If you are looking for a starter guide, there are better posts floating around. If you are at least somewhat familiar with Chinese as a language and culture, read on.

Maybe you are a new Chinese learner, or perhaps you are a heritage speaker like me. Either way, you are probably aware of the vast amount of homophones that Chinese has and all sorts of accidental puns that you might run into. Have you ever heard the joke where two people meet and their conversation goes like this?

-你叫什麼名了？(What's your name?)

-倪繈仙 / 李廣仙。(Ni Jiangxian / Lei Gong-sin.) (Misheard as 你講先 "You tell me first.")

-……??

I heard it first in Cantonese, so please bear with the rough Mandarin equivalent I whipped up. Anyways, my mother told me this joke sometime in elementary school as a warning: Chinese names can be a double-edged sword. Sometimes parents can come up with a seemingly great name, only for their surname to turn the name into a joke later in life. Looking at the surname Wu/Ng/吳 in particular (be careful with this surname unless you want to intentionally make it into a joke, because it rhymes with "not" and will reverse the meaning of most names related to traits).

With that said, this is my personal process for choosing names:

1. Family background. Were their parents/caretakers scholars? Royalty? Farmers? Generally, parents who are at least somewhat educated in poetic texts will be much more careful when naming their child in order to avoid any faux pas, whether making an accidental pun or choosing a name that can be perceived as unlucky. As for parents who don't have access to that kind of education, they commonly relied on fortune-telling from the local taoist in order to choose an auspicious name for their child. On the flip side, you might see instances like Marquis Gu Yun's backstory in Sha Po Lang by priest, in which his parents named him Shen Shiliu (meaning "sixteen") due to his sickliness.

2. Meaning. I'm glossing over this because there are more in-depth guides out there about this. Figure out your intentions for your character. You don't always need to put a lot of thought into it since realistically, the names given to them at birth don't always align with their character at the current point of your story—however, if your character has a courtesy name, you should take more time to pick a name, whether they choose it themself or their family does. Here are some conventions I have noticed though:

Three-character names with a single-character surname are the most common, but two-character names occur somewhat frequently historically as well (i.e. Cao Pei in the Three Kingdoms era). Two- or more-character surnames are usually associated with old clans (like Zhuge and Sima) as well as non-Han Chinese ancestry (like Aisin Gioro), and they may be paired with a single- or two-character first name. Unless you are transliterating from other languages and making a point that a character isn't of Han descent, you generally don't want to exceed 4 characters.

Gendered names get really foggy once you look beyond obvious ones like Meili (美麗) and everything else that means "beautiful." Generally, characters with 花/玉/女 radicals are more commonly feminine (especially 女), although there are notable exceptions like Jia Baoyu (假寶玉) from the Ming Dynasty classic, Dreams of the Red Chamber. Scenic meanings tend to be more feminine while character meanings skew masculine—but, as always, there are exceptions, like scenic names that utilize herbal medicine meanings.

Names taken from old poems, such as those by Li Bai, are generally very safe, although it's not always considered "classy" because sometimes the name can lose some meaning without necessary context.

You can get pretty creative, if you feel pretty daring. For example, Guo Jing and Yang Kang from Legend of the Condor Heroes by Jin Yong are named after the Jingkang Incident, a historical event nearing the end of the Song Dynasty.

Names have changed in convention over time, so some traditionally feminine names today were masculine at one point in time. For example, Feng (鳳) is commonly used in feminine names today, however historically 鳳 referred to male phoenixes whereas 凰 (pronounced Huang) referred to female phoenixes.

3. Poeticism. Not everyone cares about it, but it is something to consider if you are crafting a blue-blooded aristocrat who recites poetry and debates with their scholarly peers, or if you want to whip up a really catchy and memorable name. Generally, you want to pay attention to the tones and the consonance, but keep in mind the dialect. If you are expecting Mandarin to be the spoken dialect among your characters, then only focus on Mandarin. If you are playing with multiple dialects, then you might want to take some care in checking if the name also sounds decent in Cantonese. Here is what I learned:

You need variance in one word to the next. Easiest way is to measure by high versus low tonal fluctuations. If the surname is a low tone, go with high next, then low again; if it starts high, go low, then high again. For example, Andy Lau's name, 劉德華 (Liu Dehua or Lau Dak-waa), goes low-high-low in Cantonese, but does not flow as well in Mandarin since it goes low-low-low.

Consonance helps make words flow into each other. Generally, if the first word ends in a long vowel, you don't want to start the next word with another vowel—although there are some exceptions, such as Xie Bi'an from Wu Chang Jie by Shui Qian Cheng. Bi (必) and An (安) notably have hard vowels and can be read reasonably distinct from each other ("Bi" hard stop "ahn", instead of "bee-ann"). Of course, always sound it out first, and if you have a friend who can speak, read it to them and see if they can read it back fine. Avoid tongue twisters.

4. Random name generator. When all else fails and you don't have the brain juice for naming everyone in your cast, use a random name generator. If you don't ever expect to translate your work into Chinese, you'll probably be fine with a generic generator on Google since the decent ones use an aggregate of common pinyin to draw from. I, personally, look for the generators that come with hanzi and copy the name into a separate doc for reference purposes. In my experience, they're not the best for particularly poetic names and you may need to cherry pick and combine new names from the random list. It does a good job for one-off characters, though. If you want to see what I use, I can link it in a reblog.

5. Google. Run the pinyin/jyutping through the search engine, just to make sure your name doesn't sound like a colloquial saying. Unless that is in fact what you are trying to do (looking at Feng Xin from Tian Guan Ci Fu). Dictionaries are your best friend (in my case, CantoDict is a savior because it also comes with full phrases with both jyutping and pinyin). Fun fact, when my mother was coming up with names for me, one of them was Qiuyan (秋煙) but good thing she did not name me that because it sounds like the Cantonese colloquial phrase for smoking cigarettes. Please don't name your child the equivalent of "stoner."

Anyways, this isn't meant to be a proper guide, but rather me just sharing my process that can be used in conjunction with the other helpful guides around here. I hope this can help somewhat in the namehunt for your OCs. 加油！

[czikpisia]

Nie Huaisang, circa 1923

[oceanandspring]

Hello I am majoring in history with a minor in asian history and am also very passionate about danmei and other chinese media similar to that! I am writing a paper about defining how gender is perceived in homosexual relationships in Chinese media with a background in Chinese historical and cultural norms. I feel as though my topic may be to broad but I am exited to write it. I wonder if once it is done and if I should share it?

[orioleonabranch]

Do you like web novels? Have you read TGCF? Are you into bookbinding? Well, have I got a survey for you!

(aka Heaven Official’s Blessing Survey, Take Two: Electric Boogaloo!)

Hi! I’m an undergraduate student currently working on a research paper about the transition of web novels from online text to officially translated print object, and need participants for my survey (your answers will be anonymous). I’m using Heaven Official’s Blessing as a case study, but readers of all web novels are welcome! If you’ve got any thoughts on online textual formats, fan translations, what counts as “legitimate” forms of The Book™, or fan bookbinding practices I’d really love to hear what you’ve got to say! The more answers I get, the stronger this paper will be, and I’m hoping to use it for grad school applications in the future!

https://smithcollege.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0TUv6irRJgJTuVE

Reasons to take the survey:

1. Help a fellow fandom nerd out

2. (lovingly) Force my professor to read 15 or more pages about danmei

3. Surveys are fun! (right? definitely right!)

4. I promise it won’t take too long (pinky swear!)

Please reblog! Hoping to get as many answers as possible!

If this post looks familiar, see the explanation below the cut:

Hey y'all! I’m back after two months with a revamped version of my survey! If you took it the first time, THANK YOU, there’s no need to take it again! If you would like to anyway (maybe your answers have changed, maybe you really like surveys, maybe you want to see my new-and-improved questions) please feel free to take the survey linked in the post. If you do, please let me know in the last question (“Any final things…”) that this is the second time you’ve taken the survey so there’s no risk of double-counting respondents!