Tokyo – Japan’s gay community is set to put on the glitz as the Tokyo Pride parade returns this weekend after a three year absence with the aim of winning acceptance among the country’s conservative society.

Drag queen shows, debates and theatre plays are being held in the lead-up to the parade which was put on ice due to a lack of staff as many gay Japanese don’t dare to come out to their families or workplaces.

For Japanese gays in Tokyo’s Shinjuku “2-chome” district where some 250 gay bars operate, the event is an opportunity to get together and celebrate in style, but also to seek understanding from other Japanese for their homosexuality.

“I lead two separate lives – during the day, I’m a full-time ‘salaryman’ in a web design company, but at night I come to ’2-chome’ to work here as a barman,” said Yuu, who declined to give his last name.

“At work no one knows about my secret and I have been living this double-life for some seven years now,” he said, singing loudly to the latest karaoke hits.

The district is gearing up for Tokyo Pride on Saturday with a number of side events aimed at making Japanese society more understanding towards the country’s gay, lesbian and transsexual communities.

Noriaki Fushimi, a gay rights activist, is holding a debate on the future of the gay movement in Japan, while “2-chome” will hold a “Rainbow Festival” on Sunday with food and beer stalls.

Apart from the celebrations, activists and politicians will also be highlighting the reasons for the gathering as many gays and lesbians feel excluded from society.

Traditional family ties still play an important role in Japan and many homosexuals find themselves under pressure to marry to fulfil their parents’ expectations.

“I have known full well I’m gay since primary school but I would always bring girlfriends home to appear “normal” in my family’s eyes,” said Sota Aoki, 24, from Sapporo in northern Japan.

“Now my parents press me to marry and until recently I’ve been seriously considering that, but I thought I don’t want to end up like many of my friends who despite being gay got married and have kids and who now have to lie for the rest of their lives.”

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Shanghai – The UK pavilion at China’s World Expo hosted a party for Shanghai’s gay community at its pavilion park on Wednesday as part of its weeklong focus on civic society.

Organizers of the event said they plan to support Shanghai’s second annual Gay Pride Week, which was moved from June to late October, when the Expo ends. It will feature an expanded version of the Gay Olympics that debuted last June, as well as a pink picnic and a pool party.

A carnival-like public parade, typical of the Gay Pride format, is unlikely as it was banned last year for public security reasons.

“You’d expect the UK to support this kind of event. London Pride is one of the biggest gay pride events in the world,” said UK pavilion spokeswoman Katherine Dixon.

“It gives a lot to the city and has a great carnival atmosphere.”

“We want to have more of a Chinese Pride this year, not just one that’s all about foreigners having a party,” said Linda Li, a member of Shanghai LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender), which organizes the festival and is mostly run by ex-pats.

“We’re hoping to align ourselves more with the Asian gay community as a whole,” said Li.

Only about 30 Chinese participants attended as reports say that ads for the event were removed from a number of Chinese language websites.

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Pattaya – The Russian musician at the center of a child rape allegation has flown out of Thailand with the approval of a Thai court to complete an engagement with a Russian orchestra.

Mikhail Pletnev, one of Russia’s top musicians and founder of the Russian National Orchestra, has been charged with raping a 14 year old boy in the resort town of Pattaya, where he has two homes and several businesses. He was granted bail by the criminal court on condition he returns to the court on 18 July.

The charge result from an earlier arrest of a Thai man, who apparently named Pletnev as one of his clients in a child sex ring, and a boy later told police that Pletnev had raped him twice while he was a guest in the musician’s house.

Pletnev, a well respected and accomplished pianist and conductor, has strongly denied the allegations, saying they were a “misunderstanding”.

Local child welfare activists fear the Plentnev may skip bail and not return to Thailand. The bail was reported to be 300,000baht, about US$9,400.

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Manila – Anticipating the worldwide Mister Gay pageant in Manila in February next year, organizers are holding this year’s national finals earlier than usual.

“This is the first time that the international contest will be held in Asia. We want to make sure that we give our best,” said Noemi Alberto, pageant producer from Winstruck Entertainment.

Last year’s winner, David Bosley, left for the international competition in Norway only last February. He landed in the semifinals, placing sixth overall from a field of over 35 international delegates.

Fifteen gay men are competing for the title in the local tilt. Alberto said the small number of contestants this year was due to the intense scrutiny the applicants went through.

Among the hopefuls are University of the Philippines’ mathematics instructor Louie Asis, government lawyer Darwin Tambago and dance sport athlete Miguel de la Serna, father of a two-year-old boy.

They are joined by heavy favorites Marc Earnest Biala, a nurse from Davao del Norte, and Sherin Abuel, a fashion designer from Mandaluyong City who dreams of organizing a Lesbian and Gay Chamber of Commerce to make the sector “more competitive in the field of international business.”

Filipino-Canadian Karla Paula Henry, the only Asian to be proclaimed Miss Earth in 2008, watched the presentation of Mr. Gay local candidates last month in Mandaluyong City. “Gay men have been very supportive of me when I was in the pageant circuit,” she said.

The Mr. Gay national edition will be held July 17 at Metro Bar, Quezon City

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Beijing – The mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party,the People’s Daily,  has published an unprecedented call for gay rights in China in its English language website, as follows:

Watching gay men and lesbians in China struggle for basic rights and dignity is like hurtling through a time warp to the past.

Job discrimination. Social ostracism. Broken-hearted parents. Lives of deception, denial and depression. Police oppression. Brutality from vicious straight men or teenage hoodlums looking for easy targets.

And those are just the visible hurdles of being gay in a straight society.

They’re the consequences of the invisible assumptions, the unenlightened attitudes that feed poisonous outcomes.

Because of cultural differences, the fight for gay rights here is bound to take on Chinese characteristics, whatever those might be. So the paths to gay rights taken in Western countries probably diverge from those that will be available here.

Nonetheless, here’s a description of what gay life can be when people stop hiding, win their rights and live with pride, a look through the time warp into the possible future.

This month, cities all over the United States will be hosting their annual Gay Pride parades. These have evolved from a few dozen people marching with paper bags over their heads to hide their identities into massive celebrations that attract tens of thousands of families, politicians and sponsors.

The best-known is in San Francisco, home to one of the country’s biggest gay populations.

From a single afternoon featuring a parade, this event now spans several days. Its activities range from picnics in the park for families to a gigantic carnival featuring booths selling food, souvenirs, arts and crafts, clothing, jewelry and services.

Some of the items are blatantly sexual. But some of America’s biggest businesses also set up booths to show their eagerness to cater to this sizable, well-organized and generally well-heeled population. These include resorts, luxury housing developments, airlines and banks.

Even The Walt Disney Co sets aside a week in June every year to hold Gay Days at Disneyland in Anaheim, California and Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Minnie and Mickey don’t mind.

The parade in San Francisco a couple of years ago was led by a large contingent of lesbian bikers, clad in black leather and riding big, noisy, powerful motorcycles. People in the audience, as well as parade participants, dressed (or undressed) in amazing costumes of lingerie, lace, leather, feathers, jewelry, body paint, boots, masks and lots of attitude.

Even dogs were dressed up or dyed in the colors of the gay-rights symbol, the rainbow.

In every city, state and local politicians march or ride in the parades or come to mingle with the gay voters. The biggest parades, such as those in New York, Chicago and San Francisco, attract national celebrities from sports, politics and entertainment.

All large American cities have gay enclaves. These tend to be among the trendiest and more expensive neighborhoods, with some of the best restaurants, hottest clubs and chicest boutiques. As a population, gays and lesbians tend to be highly educated and financially comfortable.

In fact, when gays and lesbians start moving into a run-down fringe neighborhood, you can bet that property values there will rise through the roof. First, they’ll renovate the housing. Then upscale cafes and bars will appear. Finally, straight people who appreciate good restaurants and can afford high-quality housing begin moving in, too.

Gays and lesbians buy houses together, open businesses, get married, have children and in general conduct their lives in the same ways as the straight population. Schools have learned to accommodate children, without fuss, who have two mommies or two daddies.

None of this came easily. It took more than 40 years of struggle, individually and as a group, to win the political and social rights supposedly guaranteed by law to all.

But it can be done, and the rewards made it worth the struggle.

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Bangkok – Producer Takonkiet Viravan has come up with a Thai version of that very camp French movie “La Cage Aux Folles”.

Starting 18 April, there will be evening shows daily of “Kinaree See Rung” at 7.30pm, plus weekend matinees at 2pm at the Muang Thai Rachadalai Theatre, on the 4th floor of The Esplanade at Rachadapisek Road in Bangkok. Last performance will be on 27 June.

In the leading roles as Issy is Ruangsak ‘James’ Loychusak (in his first such gay/katoey role), while Songsit ‘Kob’ Roongnophakunsri plays the part of his partner Georges.

Issy and George own a very successful drag night club and lead a very ‘out’ and camp lifestyle, but are presented with a major problem when Georges’ son gets engaged to the daughter of an ultra conservative politician, and the two partners have to learn to act like straight men to support Georges’ son. The outcome is hilarous and takes several twists on the way.

“La Cage Aux Folles” was later made into a Hollywood film, and a musical called “The Birdcage”.

Ticket for the Thai language “Kinaree See Rung” cost 500, 1,000, 1,500, 1,800, 2,300 and 2,800 baht and available at Thaiticketmajor booths. Call 02-262-3456 or visit http://www.thaiticket major.com

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Beijing – In apartment 2108, there’s a small second-hand book market. It seems nothing special but the dozens of rainbow-colored signs decorating the room offer some clues to the uniqueness of the event.

This is a gay-themed sale in the unit, which functions as the Beijing LGBT Center, for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

More than 70 books and hundreds of magazines and DVDs were donated by people from the LGBT community, with about half the titles dealing in homosexual subjects.

“The book market is a new channel of fundraising,” said Yang Ziguang, manager of Beijing LGBT Center. “But what matters more is that it’s another opportunity to build up the sense of a big family, and bond together.”

Founded on Feb 14, 2008, the center is a public, nonprofit organization which aims to raise the awareness of self-identity of the LGBT community, and promote the gay movement and multicultural development, according to the organization’s mission statement.

The center has invited celebrities such as the openly gay mayor of West Hollywood, John Duran, and Taiwan movie director Zhou Meiling, a lesbian, to give speeches to the LGBT community in Beijing. It also provides other activities such as movie screenings, chorus training, an English corner and travel opportunities.

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Bangkok – After some of the worst violence the country has ever seen, Thailand’s capital is struggling to recover after mayhem which destroyed more than 30 buildings, including the iconic Siam Theater, and the huge Central World shopping mall and hotel complex, which is now in danger of collapsing.

Among the shattered businesses, the gay area of Silom has not come out unscathed, although none of the bars or pubs were damaged, the financial toll has been high as they were forced to close down due to fierce street clashes, and now a curfew.

One hard hit restaurant chain is the gay owned ‘Bug & Bee’ which has an outlet in Silom Road, one in Siam Paragon which has been closed for many weeks, and they were about to open a new branch in Central World on the day that area was invaded by protesters.

There are reports that some other gay venues may not survive the turmoil too.

The city is now undergoing a major clean-up operation and transport links should be operating again within a few days, but billions of baht will be needed to renovated the damage done, but for many its already too late.

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Bangkok – Gays in Thailand’s capital city are enjoying a respite from the protests that have been taken place for the last month, and turned violent last weekend.

Songkran (Thai New Year) has seen bullets replaced by water as the gay community joins the annual wild water celebrations, as seen in the photo provided by Telephone Pub in Silom Soi 4.

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Pattaya -Pattaya Pride (formerly Pattaya Gay Festival) will be holding two events in April this year.

The first is a fund-raising Dinner at Pagoda Restaurant in Jomtien Complex on Wednesday April 28.

This is Pattaya Pride’s first time at Pagoda Restaurantand promises to be a very popular event. The evening starts at 8pm with a welcome “Pagoda” cocktail plus canapes and is then followed by a sumptious dinner. The price is 1,350 Baht which includes a 350 Baht donation to the Pattaya Pride Charities.
Reservations should be made directly to Pagoda Restaurant on 084 5511880 or email pagoda-pattaya@hotmail.com

The second event is the Pattaya Pride Rear of the Year 2010 to be held at the Copa Showbar in Boyz Town (Pattayaland Soi 3) on Friday April 30.

This popular annual event gives contestants the opportunity to win some of the 24,000 Baht prize money donated by Boyz Town businesses. Plus the audience have the opportunity to select their favourite contestant by purchasing roses, the proceeds of which are donated to Pattaya Pride Charities.

Rear of The Year 2010 starts at 10pm at the extremely popular Copa Showbar Cabaret. Entrance is 250 Baht which includes your first drink and a 100 Baht donation to the Pattaya Pride Charities. Be sure to arrive early to get a good seat.Pattaya Pride is the new name for Pattaya Gay Festival now in its 10th year and has raised over 30,000,000 Baht for local charities here in Pattaya.www.pattayapride.com

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