Tell us about your character in ｢The King And I｣?

CR: I play Lun Tha, who brings brings Tuptim as a gift for the King from the King of Burm, — but they are secretly in love with each other.

Lun Tha and Tuptim figure out a way to try to meet with each other throughout the year that Anna is in the palace. Anna starts helping them and then eventually my character is sent away. I come up with this plan for her to come with me.

You’re part of a hit show on TV and a Tony-winning musical. How have you handled all that attention?

CR: I sing two beautiful songs in ｢The King And I｣ but my total stage time is only about 12 minutes. Which is nice, because I just finished a show, ｢Here Lies Love｣ down at The Public Theater, that was so exhausting. It was 90 minutes nonstop on stage — all the time singing and dancing. So this is a little bit of a break. My body was so beat up after Love, this has been really great.

Honestly, I’m living the professional dream life right now — having an amazing TV job and an amazing theater job as well. They complement each other and enhance each other in ways I never expected. That was the coolest thing.

What are you learning from ｢The King And I｣?

CR: I’m learning a huge amount from singing classical musical theater. The last show I did was a rock musical by David Byrne from The Talking Heads. It was amazing but such a different skill set... I’m learning a lot being a part of this amazing company.

Kelli knows how to move around on a huge stage better than anyone I’ve seen because she’s done it for so long. She’s amazing. Ken [Watanabe] is also just really, really great to watch.

How were the Tonys for you?

CR: I was getting dirty looks from people in the auditorium during the Tonys because I was screaming so loudly when Ruthie Ann Miles won [for playing Lady Thiang].

You have to understand, she was literally one of the first people I met there years ago when I moved to NYC to start the workshop of ｢Here Lies Love｣, and we’ve been together ever since.

Kelli is simply the most generous actor. She leads this company with a warm spirit that is everything but most importantly she is inclusive. It was so great to see her win on Sunday [and] with such a great sense of humor! I loved her jig at the end of her speech!

I’m just so happy to be a part of such a gorgeous show and story that we get to tell every night. After all of the great celebrating we did [after the Tonys], the best joy was actually getting to come back to Lincoln Center and tell this story again and sing these songs.

The audience this Tuesday went absolutely bonkers during the curtain call. They were all so happy for Ruthie, Kelli and all of us.

Getting back to ｢How to Get Away With Murder｣. Your character learns he’s HIV-positive—how did that inform your performance and Oliver’s relationship with Connor?

CR: Jack [Falahee] was the person that told me: I was in the makeup trailer and we were shooting the episode before the finale. He was like, “Did you hear? Did you read?” I was like, “No. What?” He was like, “You have HIV.”

I just stood there and it took me the rest of that day to come out of this funk. I realized I’d become so close to this character that I’m playing. I care so much about him that it really did hurt to find out he had HIV. So that was my first reaction.

Then we shot the scene three days later. I kept thinking, if this is what the story is going to be then how would you feel? What would it be like?

I mean as a gay man I’ve gone and got tested every year. Anyone that has done it can tell you what it’s like sitting in the waiting room, no matter how sure you are about anything, just being terrified.

I sat with what it would be like to come back positive and then stayed with that for about a day. The day before we shot it I stayed in that [mindset] the whole day and then the next morning I came on set and just wore a hoodie and had headphones because I knew that that’s where it had to live to be honest.

That was what I wanted to do was have the honest portrayal of what it would be like to have this diagnosis and then to share it with someone for the first time. I’m happy, too, that it’s being brought back into the mainstream because I feel like ignorance is not bliss in this case.

Why do you think Oliver is so drawn to Connor? I’m guessing it’s not just the good sex.

CR: I think that’s a huge part of why many people stay together. I think he’s excited by him. I think that there is something about all of the illegal things he’s doing by helping that is really exciting to him.

I imagine that the job he has in IT is a very run-of-the-mill, fix-your-server problems. There’s a little bit of James Bond in Oliver and this is how it comes out. He likes that side of it.

I think he falls for [Connor] because he’s extremely good-looking and charming, and he’s real. Oliver knows that Connor is being real with him when he’s not with other people. That he’s actually very real — besides the obvious huge secrets that are there.

But I feel like Connor can be himself around Oliver in ordinary, everyday ways — like the ways that he carries himself, his posture. He runs over to my house a sweaty mess and he doesn’t care what he looks like. I think there’s that ultimate level of comfortability with the person you fall in love with.

How has it been working with Jack Falahee? Since you have to have such an intimate relationship, do you get a lot of time to talk about your characters together?

CR: He’s the best guy — so great. There’s very, very little [rehearsal time] because I was doing a show here and flying back and forth when we were shooting [Murder]. I didn’t have days to be like “Do you want to hang out and talk about what we’re doing with what could be a long-term arc of these two characters together?”

So we’ve never actually been able to do that or have a lot of face to face time. We just seem to naturally have a great rapport with each other. It seems to work without overthinking it too much.

During the course of shooting the pilot, did you always know you were coming back for more episodes?

CR: No, I didn’t know — I thought I was just going to be in for the pilot and then they kept bringing me back. Then as the storyline started opening up there never seemed to be an end to it. So I was like “I guess I’m kind of a part of the show now” I was in nine episodes out of 15.

What would people be surprised to know about you?

CR: I’m obsessed with coffee shops. I think the best ones are the greatest places on Earth. I opened one when I was in undergrad, a student-run coffeehouse and we came up with a business plan.

I remember when Ellen had her sitcom she ran a bookstore-coffeehouse called Buy The Book.

CR: I remember being in the closet in high school and when [Ellen] first came out. I wasn’t scared for her but I was for myself — that somehow now people were going to be able to know.

When did you actually come out?

CR: I came out my senior year in college. That’s when I was like “What is the world and who am I?” As opposed to just being reflected back from who my parents saw me as or wanted me to be or whatever.

Being out doesn’t seem to have pigeonholed you.

CR: No, I think that’s something that’s huge that’s changing with actors is that Neil Patrick Harris playing a straight man on television for years and years and years. I think people just don’t care.

Where do you see the most exciting research and debates happening in your field?

Recently, an American friend asked me a similar question: what changes have taken place in the LGBT community in China in recent years? As an insider, it’s hard to see the changes and differences; similarly to a man who looks at himself in a mirror every day and who wouldn’t pick up on the small evolutions. But if we go back ten years, we can see that the LGBT society has changed a lot right across China. As a queer film director, I’ve noticed a tightening of government policy, which is even going backward in some ways. For example the increasingly strict control of the Internet means that a lot of LGBT news and information is now banned, so communication in the LGBT society has really been affected.

For me, the biggest change has been a new understanding of the relationship between art and politics. Until I went to university, I thought that politics were very distant from my own life, because both my family education and art education insisted that politics should be kept separate, otherwise it can cause trouble. But my experience in the last two years of university taught me that politics is everywhere. In 2005, the 2nd Beijing Queer Film Festival was held at Beijing University. I went to watch the films as an ordinary member of the audience, but the government cracked down on the festival during the opening ceremony. I was affected by this issue and felt pity and anger. It was then that I decided to do something for the community. Later, I joined the committee of the Beijing Queer Film Festival as a volunteer. As people began to recognise my working skills and ability, I became more involved in the activities and projects of the LGBT community. Now, looking back, I’m surprised at how closely connected politics were to my films and activities. Actually, as a Chinese person I can’t ignore politics, it’s impossible to escape.

How has the way you understand the world changed over time, and what (or who) prompted the most significant shifts in your thinking?

Film has always been an important part of my life, although I didn’t think of studying or making films before my college entrance examination. I chose it as my major because my mathematics was so poor! Someone told me that, as an arts’ major, you don’t need to sit in a single mathematics exam. However, I wasn’t good at singing, dancing or painting, so I chose to study dramatic literature of film as my major. I thought I’d probably made the wrong decision when I listened to all my classmates talking about masters of cinema and film theory. The campus atmosphere was difficult, but discovering Queer Film was the turning point for me. At that time, I had a classmate who was particularly homophobic, but he later changed his point of view after watching some queer films with me. I also think this genre has a special meaning for me, and I became more and more engaged in it. I also used my knowledge of queer films in my homework and discussions in the classroom. Later, I used this knowledge to write ｢Happy Together: Complete Record of a Hundred Queer Films｣, my first book. That was the early stage of my involvement in queer filmmaking.

The Beijing Film Academy advocated an elite education, as far away from politics as possible. Yet with some influential teachers it was different, they looked at things in a different way. For example Zi’en Cui, who for some complex political reasons was never allowed to give us a lesson, taught me more than anyone else through friendship. Today we’re still very good friends. Xianmin Zhang was another. He specialised in independent film and gave me some helpful and meaningful advice. After graduating, with the exception of the two of them, I have generally lost contact with teachers and classmates.

How would you describe and characterise the history of Chinese LGBT film production and your position in it?

The history and development of Chinese queer film has been a gradual process from ambiguous to clear, I would identify three steps. The first is before the 1990s when directors used ambiguous ways to deal with plots about same sex couples. One example is ｢Two Stage Sisters｣ directed by the famous Jin Xie, where the two female characters have a very blurred relationship that hints at lesbianism. Kaige Chen’s well-known work, ｢The Great Military Parade｣, also alludes to some same-sex passion but without any clear representation of it. The second step occurred around 1996, which is known as the first year of queer film in China. In this year the famous young director Yuan Zhang made the seminal ｢Behind the Forbidden City｣ a film about gays and their lives. Although at this time, very few queer films were made or shown publicly. The third step starts with the new millennium when more and more queer films were made and released using new film production technology. From 2001 to 2005, some documentaries about drag queens were released. Why drag queens? I think there are two main reasons: one is that very few gays or lesbians are ‘coming out’, another one is that drag queens worry less about showing their faces in documentaries because they always have exaggerated makeup on stage. But the subject matter was still limited and narrow until 2006-2010, when a stronger creative period produced a wider range of films and videos about gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual blowout types, and also in different forms including feature films, documentaries, MVs and animation.

A second significant observation here is that the development of queer film was a process for homosexual participation as a method of comrades’ self-empowerment. Before 2005, most queer films were made by heterosexual male directors who had an interest in LGBT themes. Because they, from the patriarchal logic point of view, were the group that had access to social capital – power, fame, money. But in 2005, that changed when director Zi’en Cui made a queer film after coming out himself. After 2006 an increasing number of queer directors produced works for their own community. Then after 2010, the movement of self-empowerment in the community moved forward again to a new stage with more community non-professionals getting involved with film and video production. This movement was facilitated by new technology and supported by advocates from the LGBT’s non-government organisations such as NGO’s workshops for film-making skills, Queer Digital Storytelling Workshop, and the Queer University Documentary Training Camp. It’s a democratisation and decentralized movement of queer film.

The last trend is the diversification of communication modes. Queer films were banned from public cinemas, the only opportunity for screenings were in small salons, pubs or coffee shops. But now the internet has become the main platform for queer film diffusion. Also the internet has had a big impact on queer film production, for example some new network television series are specifically made to be shown online.

One of your most popular documentaries, ｢Mama Rainbow｣, follows six mothers from different cities as they forge relationships with their gay and lesbian children; the parents in the film are very optimistic and supportive. How does this compare with the real situation for LGBT youth, and why did you choose to portray the mothers in this particular way?

Indeed, the parents in my films are too positive and accepting, this doesn’t reflect the real situation in China. But for me, my documentary is just one of the narratives. There is no single narrative to provide the whole story/ reality. I never said these parents are representing all of China’s queer parents, just some parents I met. If they were against the idea of being queer parents, they would refuse to be interviewed. It’s one of the important issues we faced during the filmmaking period, also why did we choose these six parents for my story?

For me, it’s a common question often asked by Western people, because the image of these queer parents is different from the way they imagine it to be in China. This question comes from a post-colonial vision of China. I would say why can’t Chinese queer parents be like this? In this way my documentary breaks the stereotype of the way Chinese families are seen or imagined from a Western point of view.

One time, after a screening of ｢Mama Rainbow｣ in America, a member of the audience told me he liked the documentary very much and thought it was an important film worth showing to more Americans. He thought it would let people know how positive and supporting Chinese queer parents are and persuade American queer parents to accept their own queer children. Sometime I think maybe it’s the reason why this documentary is so popular in America; it seems to break the American impression of China as a ‘backward’ country. However, at the same time I fell into another trap, because American audiences tend to use it as an example to show that their own society should be doing better than China.

When I’m interacting with the audience, I’m very careful discussing the narratives in the film, I try to emphasise on the fact that it’s just a story about some of families I met and it doesn’t represent all of China’s families. Also the purpose of the documentary is to launch a topic, and build a public discourse space.

In addition to being a director, you are also on the board of the Beijing LGBT Centre. From your observations, what is the most significant change that has occurred in the LGBT society in China recently?

In my experience, there is an important sense of a gradual awakening of identity. In the very beginning, when I joined some queer events and projects, I just thought I should work for the group for myself and others. But later I started thinking about why (queer) identity is so important. Does identity have to be single, immutable and frozen? Once, we screened a transgender film at a film festival. A member of the audience who identifies as gay found me after the viewing and said, “Transgender films aren’t good for the gay’s social image, we’re normal and decent people. We shouldn’t let others think we want to transform our sex or cross-dress.” It’s hard for me to understand why some gays refuse to accept the idea of transgender. Why should gay discourse exclude or belittle the transgender issue, creating a separate community? So I told him ‘Do you know that the way other people think about homosexuality is similar to the attitude that you are having towards the transgender group?”

In 2010, I developed this idea and made the documentary about transgender and drag queens, called ｢Be a Woman｣. They are very sociable and friendly group, some of their activities are more interesting than their gay counterparts. I also have some lala friends (the common nickname of lesbian in China), and my gay friends also joke about them. One asked me ‘You’re so close to lala, so you’re one of them, right?’ These encounters made me examine another aspect of identity politics: can we really think beyond the limitations of our own identity? During the production of the film, I slowly realised we do a lot of things that are not related just to our own identities; not all gays will participate in the gay rights movement, and participants in this movement are not all gays. For example, of the seven people on the organising committee of the Beijing Queer Film Festival, three are heterosexual. We’re working together from the same common starting point: we are against inequality, and we are working for a greater freedom. It’s also the reason and motivation for me to stay in the LGBT society and to participate in so many activities.

I learned to use the western term ‘community’ from the activities I was involved with over these years, but I didn’t really understand it until the Beijing LGBT Center was established. At the start, I just thought it was a place for gay people to have fun, but later I realised it’s also a social sphere where we are very dependent on its spirit and psychology, a community with social interaction and inherent relevance.

Today I don’t worry about the different factions of the LGBT society; groups need their own space in any community. In my experience, the community needs to work towards the same target, but also make space for different elements. Because there can be no single space that is suitable for all people, no movement can engage everybody in the same way. Actually the consistency is very scary, like the political lesson we learned in childhood, there’s no such thing as individualism all must ‘be united as one’, and that’s impossible for 13 billion Chinese. There is no ‘Chinese dream’ for everybody. The members of the Chinese LGBT group can’t share the same values and targets, if we could it would be great. But it’s also great for groups to follow their own goals in their own ways; it’s very important for the whole community. Furthermore, the ‘internal division’ is useful for avoiding personal heroism in a society that has made everyone follow the same leader. It’s another type of hegemony.

The theories in gender and sexuality studies have predominantly been written by scholars in the European and American academic institutes. They very often claim universalism to a certain degree. Having toured around the world and spoken at various events like the Cologne Pride event in Germany, could you say anything about the differences in the LGBT cultures globally?

That is a very interesting question for sure. I feel that LGBT societies are becoming more and more similar in the different countries I’ve visited, for example many different countries’ LGBT societies are focusing on same sex marriage rights, including China. I wonder if the reason for this connected movement is the influence of Western and global culture, or a need to follow someone’s lead in the Chinese LGBT society.

Recently, there was a discussion about China’s queer movement on Facebook, with people leaving their comments under a video that was posted. A doctor and teacher of a well know American university said even after just watching five minutes of the video that he was filled with anger about China’s queer movement which was following the Western counterpart’s footsteps too closely. I replied to his words from my side, “How often do you come to China? How close are you to our LGBT society? If you were close enough to us you would know that we are different from Western LGBT groups, and your basic judgment is wrong. What is the West, is Europe the same as America? Do you think China only has one voice?” I disagree with this binary opposition. “And the developments of society and culture are very subtle. It’s hard to say how much interactivity there might be. For example, all civilizations have cooking skills. Who influences who? Or has each developed technologies for their own needs and ways.” For example, how do you treat a laddish lesbian who is wearing trousers and a tie? Is she imitating a man’s clothing style, or is this a creative performance of her sexuality?

It’s same for the same-sex marriage rights campaign in China. Everybody knows that we have no chance to collect enough signatures to bring about a bill at the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. But the advocacy is working for the LGBT group’s social visibility more than for the rights of same sex marriage.

With globalization we have to watch out for two things: the destruction of the local culture and creating a false sense of division between East and West.

The Chinese government has announced a new policy for NGO groups, especially those that have ties with ‘Western’ countries. Do you foresee any particular impact for LGBT groups and for the works of freelance artists like yourself?

Last year, my documentary ｢Mama Rainbow｣ (2012) was removed from video-hosting websites and from the Chinese internet. I was told that it had to be deleted as a new government’s requirement. In accordance with the information publicity law, I applied for further information about this action to China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), but I was informed they had never banned the film. I can’t find the right information about this, or sort out the problem. The biggest challenge from the rules and laws of government is that nobody knows where the red line or boundary lies. It’s like being in a game where the players don’t know the rules. If we had access to such information from the government our attitudes wouldn’t be so negative at this moment.

I heard some friends who work in NGO groups discuss the new Foreign NGO Management Law. It’s a serious development for NGOs; their work will become extremely difficult under the new law in its current draft form. There are active groups working with and in Chinese society, seeking to alleviate poverty, eliminate discrimination and conduct other activities that benefit the average citizen.

Two very well-known NGO groups, the Transition Institute and the China Rural Library have been forcibly closed by the government, and this has deeply affected grassroot actions. I can’t even imagine the closure of the Beijing LGBT Centre, which is a place we used to visit every weekend for social activities and communication. For many people, it’s a unique place to help establish their individual identity.

What was the most difficult part of your career?

In my career, there are two big problems I have always had to face. The first one is financial. Even now, I am still suffering from financial pressures. When I graduated from university, I only had five thousand pounds in savings from my part time jobs and from the book royalties. In the beginning, raising funds for my films was difficult. In 2008 I borrowed two thousand pounds from my boyfriend and wasn’t able to pay him back until 2010. During those years, I always had to be very careful with money, even in my daily life. I would buy duck bones with a bit of meat when others could buy the famous Beijing roast duck for its delicious crispy skin. I was lucky, I survived, and through those early lessons I became a good film producer.

Basically, I have tried all kinds of different ways to raise money for films, starting out self- funded, and later relying on private donations. For example I made ｢Chinese Closet｣ with a friend’s investment in 2009, but I could also apply for funds from NGO groups or foundations that support human rights or LGBT societies. My experience is mirrored by most Chinese independent filmmakers.

The second problem has been film distribution. Until recently queer films could not be publicly released in China. I was always embarrassed when people asked me where they could see my films, especially after they were banned from the Chinese Internet. I couldn’t even say “Please search my work online”!

What is the most important advice you could give to young scholars of international relations, interested in gender and sexuality theories?

For young scholars who are interested in Chinese LGBT groups, either Chinese or foreign, the most important thing is a contact within the LGBT community, by participating in the movement, even just through a small involvement such as translating Chinese articles or helping with event publicity . Also it’s the best way to conduct research, getting close and involved with your subject, understanding the group, keeping up to date with real and important issues and stories from inside.

Curator Khairuddin Bin Hori told me you two met online. How much does the online community foster your art and relationships?

The internet seems to be the main arena for young artists my age worldwide. We are all influenced by the internet and its unique aesthetic — we make art out of it, and then show it on internet, like a circulatory system. Internet and social media are the most efficient way ever to spread art. This is also how the Europeans approach me; it’s how they come across my work.

Can you talk about your upbringing and how it influenced you?

My parents don’t practice any religion; they are like most Chinese people from their time. I grew up without religion. I think that is one of the reasons I have this longing to believe.

Performance in collaboration with Beio, House Of Drama and Grebnellaw

Pop culture is everywhere in your work: from Eric Cartman and Michael Jordan on a rug, to rap music symbols like gold chain and gold teeth. How would you describe your relationship to pop culture?

My work is based on my personal interests and experiences in those pop-culture or sub-culture scenes—both in urban China and in the UK, through all the events and parties I was involved in. I was keen on making my work reflect our generation’s life, and share the same experience with them. I took characters from cartoons or pop culture iconography that I liked, and absorbed them into my new cult symbol system. I’m trying to create a tension between pop culture and religion. For example, I used one of Lana Del Rey’s songs in my performance. I try to create another interpretation when I put it into the context of a religious story. When an upside-down crucified figure sings the song, it becomes like a sacrifice.

How do drugs infuse your work? There are the multicoloured bongs in your Pilot piece, and I heard you gave drugs to all the members in your audience in preparation for a performance.

I’m not encouraging the use of drugs. Some parts of my work are very personal, but at the same time there are audiences who share the same experience. There is social anxiety in my generation in China, where everything is so sick and poisonous — drugs are the antidote.

I guess you are referring to ｢Tianzhuo’s Acid Club｣, my solo show in 2013 — I turned the gallery space into a rave party. There were about 500 people that came, they smoked weed and took LSD there the whole night. That was very dope; one of the best parties in Beijing. But I didn’t give them drugs, I’m not a dealer or anything. I would never do that. It just happened like this. I’m glad that everyone enjoyed the party. The party itself is the most important piece of the show.

You make repeated references to freemasonry and Eastern religions. What does adding these belief systems and symbols into your work bring?

My fictional religion is a hybrid of various religions. I take ideas and symbols from many other religions, and generate more contemporary meanings in mine. It is very common; religions absorb each other, like how Buddhism took form from Hinduism.

You have worked with the fashion line, Sankuanz, which was shown in both China and the UK during fashion weeks. How does creating for the body differ from creating for a space?

I just collaborated with a fashion designer and made a few collections. I don’t see the fashion collection as something else; I still think that is part of my work. The prints on the clothes were taken from my work. It is an extension from sculptural space onto the human body.

Performance in collaboration with Beio, House Of Drama and Grebnellaw

You studied graphic design and fine arts, but are self-taught with your videos. How have your decisions about which media to use evolve over time?

I guess I just lose my passion too easily to keep doing the same thing. I need to switch between media to maintain my motivation. Performance is the main media I’m working on right now.

You’re part of a more underground scene in China, and haven’t had any censorship problems, but how much does this risk weigh on you?

I don’t know. I haven’t been concerned by this problem yet. How could I make work if I was concerned by this every day? I hope that it’s never going to be a problem.

There’s a very exaggerated quality to your work—in content, colour, scale. Yet you’re known as quite quiet in real life, well according to Khairuddin Bin Hori!

I’m not that quiet, I’m just a bit shy; Asian people are shy. I can be quite crazy when I’m partying. Khai never parties with me, ha.

Photography Zhuang Yan

The show is in collaboration with K11, which run malls in China. Where you see the line between art and consumerism, if you think there is one at all?

I think they are basically parasitic.

This solo exhibition is your first in Europe. Does location change your work?

I don’t think my work has strong geographical character or territorialism, so I don’t really consider that aspect. I didn’t change my work in different cities, though the reception from audiences can be very different.

The Toast: New York is home for you, but you grew up in Korea, Hawaii, Guam, and Maine, and in some of your essays you’ve mentioned moving a lot as an adult, too. Can you talk a little bit about growing up in so many different places? How has that, and moving around so much, influenced your writing?

Alexander Chee: I suspect I don’t have quite the same relationship to place.

I remember when we moved to Maine and I realized that we wouldn’t keep moving — in a way, staying in place was harder. And the kids I met, this was age 6 — they couldn’t imagine or even pronounce “Guam”. It felt like meeting evangelical Christians and knowing there are other gods.

So for a long time after that, I felt as if my real home was someplace I had yet to find. Part of that was about being biracial in that historical moment — my parents’ marriage was illegal just a few years before they married. People would say, for decades, “Someday everyone will look like you,” which made me feel as if the place I belonged was the future, not the present — and which also made it feel as if it would never arrive. It was like being born into exile, an immigrant at birth from a country that didn’t exist yet — a country I’d have to build or, maybe, find.

A therapist once accurately described me as someone with many identities I keep in reserve for those who can understand them — and that I needed to experience myself as whole, not as a series of aliases created in order to have connections to others. I suspect that may be why I write fiction. That’s something I do explore in my new novel — a feeling of being permanently outside, always pretending to belong to the landscape, of changing one’s identity regularly and starting over, again and again. I gave that to Lilliet, my narrator in『The Queen of the Night』, though I didn’t realize it until near the end of writing it.

After your recent Future Queer cover story for TNR, you hosted a #FutureQueer conversation @tnr. What has most surprised or stuck with you from that discussion and the overall response to your story?

I was and am still very moved by the very personal responses I’ve received. Stories of the emotional cost. A friend whose godmother wanted her whole life to marry her partner and now at 93, her partner’s Alzheimer’s would make it an empty gesture, or a one-sided one.

There was a certain amount of people who believed I was saying whatever they needed me to say — that I was for or against marriage, for or against assimilation, despite my trying to describe my very real ambivalence and my fears about the future. But mostly I think that what I was trying to say was heard.

In the Twitter chat what was immediately apparent, though, was the way the problems in America are the problems in the LGBTQI community — in our case, an exhaustion with looking at two white men in suits carrying bouquets and not seeing any other faces or getting the stories of other lives. Behind the word “intersectionality” is so much potential strength — and it’s exhausting to see that unmet still as much as it is.

In that story for TNR, you wrote: “My hope is that marriage equality queers marriage rather than straightening queers — that we reinvent it and keep reinventing it” — I really appreciated this, and also wanted to know if you could explain a bit more about what you mean by “queering marriage.” What would that look like for you? And I know you already wrote eloquently about what you think could be next after marriage equality, but I’d love to hear your thoughts after the Supreme Court ruling, which occurred after your story ran.

In college when I came out, my four best friends, all men, immediately questioned their own sexuality. It was as if my own openness allowed them theirs. I think I mean that sort of thing, on a larger scale. It’s already happening, but I want it to happen more. A way of looking at marriage that is more about making it what you want rather than blindly participating in traditions and institutions. Words like “husband” and “wife” are really loaded artifacts. I’ve seen friends make their marriages entirely their own and who have found great happiness, openness and pleasure in being married and in reinventing all of the traditions of it. And I’ve seen many friends just completely unable to take the language on — or who do, and whose relationships fail after they marry, relationships that worked well beforehand. It’s as if the labels come with invasive programs, viruses that take over people’s minds if they don’t really think about it. There’s just so much historic inequality in those words. Among my straight women friends, especially, the word “wife” itself can be like this blight on their whole life. That’s the sort of thing I’d love to see change.

We are going to have another interview, closer to your book release, about『The Queen of the Night』, but for now could you talk a bit about the process of writing it compared to your process for『Edinburgh』, and anything else you would like our readers to know about your new novel?

I began writing my first novel,『Edinburgh』, after a really ambitious earlier novel had been rejected for being potentially too long, and so I decided: “Well, I’ll just write a shitty autobiographical novel like every other asshole and call it a day.” But I dropped that bitterness soon enough and began in earnest to write a novel that described what I felt I never seen described — the way sexual abuse could feel, afterward, as if something had replaced you.

That novel took 5 years to write and 2 to sell, and was rejected 24 times.

This was a real education. My agent and I got questions back like “Is it a gay novel? Is it an Asian American novel?” — as if I had to choose. Marketing departments were rejecting it claiming they didn’t know how to sell it. I would say in response, “It’s a novel.” I think it’s interesting how much MFA culture gets blamed for what gets published, given that as far as I know, programs don’t decide what gets published. Publishers do.

『The Queen of the Night』, at that time, was just a short paragraph and a few pages, and that almost eclipsed『Edinburgh』entirely. Publishers wanted me to write Queen first and I didn’t know how to trust that. What if I then went and wrote Queen and it wasn’t what they thought it would be? I just felt like I couldn’t spend any more of my life trying to be whatever they wanted me to be without losing my mind. As far as I was concerned, the publisher I wanted would take this novel first. I eventually found an independent publisher, Welcome Rain, and an editor there, Chuck Kim, a real champion who took it on, and based on the reviews they were able to sell the paperback rights to Picador, who I can’t say enough good about. Now I’m at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and they’ve been tremendous.

As for what to say about Queen, it’s a novel about an opera singer in 19th-century Paris. She’s approached by a writer about creating a role in a new opera, one based on a novel of his, and when she asks about the story, he learns that it could only be a story about her — about a part of her life she didn’t think was known to more than a very few people. This suggests to her that either it’s a complete coincidence, or a trap of some kind. And that a very old deal she made — one that allowed her to transcend her origins and become a singer — has come undone, and that this person hopes to make her pay one last price. So she sets out to discover just what happened and why.

I started the novel wanting to get as far away from myself as possible. I had an image of a woman singer on a train with a circus, walking the train in the dark, sitting in the elephant car and writing about her life. The plot came from how I was interested in the ways people wrote about each other then, among other things — and in part, what it would be like to have someone write a novel about you. I was also interested in trying to write about that woman I would see in the edges of biographies and novels from the 19th century — hippodrome riders who could walk on their hands and were the favorite lovers of kings, and yet mysteriously didn’t rate more than a few sentences, much less a novel. I was fascinated also by how much of our world comes from 19th-century Paris in ways we don’t seem to examine — ideas about fashion, celebrity, luxury, class.

I first came to your writing through your wonderful essays. Can you work on both fiction and non at once, or do you find it easiest to focus on one at a time? What is most important to you about each form?

Thank you. Sometimes it is quite easy to write them side by side. Sometimes not. Novels tend to be greedy, and a writer’s career can go blank while they work on one.

They’re very different ways of thinking about ideas, to my mind, and I think this is often lost in discussions about their distinctions, or discussions that insist there are no distinctions, in part because Americans tend to be suspicious of even the idea of fiction with ideas. It’s as if all we want from our fictions is for them to be trustworthy guarantees of a good time — and from our nonfiction, we want trustworthy guarantees of “wisdom”.

Both fiction and nonfiction are, to me, investigations happening inside of limits. I do think they have different limits and that the limits matter, formally, in the way limits matter to a sestina or a sonnet. This is very reductive, but for me the difference is, in fiction, the limits are set by a character. In nonfiction, the limits are set by your character.

Can you share some of your views on the current state of publishing, and also how Amazon might be changing the game?

Well, we know publishing profits have improved while writer pay has declined. So that is terrible. I’m greatly encouraged by some recent developments in publishing in terms of what is getting published and reviewed.

What worries me most is that we are still in a weird place where, 20 years in, we’re being told we still don’t know how the Internet affects book sales or readership, and so writers can’t be paid as much for writing written online — even as every major media outlet is now online and increasingly abandons print editions. Yet so far, you still get paid more for print even though it is often read less — and you get paid less for digital, and yet everyone reads that. That has to change. Because it’s a scam.

It’s time to admit the Internet is here.

I was going through old files and found pay stubs from digital writing I did in 1999 that are roughly what is still getting paid for something that you also have to fact check yourself and in some cases copyedit — but that is also given a title you don’t choose. And because of content grabs in contracts, it may not even belong to you.

And so I don’t have any comment about Amazon except to say that over time I am less and less interested on any seasonal focus on Amazon’s most recent moves, whatever they are — like many American companies they are a mix of good and bad, what I agree and disagree with — and I’m more and more interested in the larger context for this, the Internet and America, income inequality and the destruction of the creative class. We’re in this horrible world where everyone wants everything for free now or almost free because to pay for it reminds them of how little they are paid and that reminds them of their powerlessness in the face of that. Or at least how powerless they feel. And there’s so much blocked anger there.

Historically, despots kill the artists, writers, journalists and professors when they seize power, as what they teach is critical thinking, and what comes with that is the ability to resist tyrannies of various kinds. What America is doing, purposefully or not, is historically distinct: delegitimizing the work of that class, and acting as if an education is the tyranny, all while insisting writers and professors make work on starvation wages, while also paying exorbitant fees for everything from healthcare to housing to taxes even on what grants remain. In order for an artist to have any respect they have to have amazing sales — or be dead after a life of poverty. So I’d prefer a bigger conversation about all of that instead.

All of which is to say, Amazon isn’t changing publishing — everyone involved in publishing is, from the writers to the editors to the readers. If we want to improve publishing we have to talk about the whole thing related to how writers are valued and compensated, and what we want our literature to contain.

As a writer, how do you feel about social media? How useful is it? Do you think it has any drawbacks for writers?

It really is a social thing for me at its core — I’ve made so many good friends there or deepened older friendships with those at a distance, and I do use it to stay connected to family, or to take a short break from work. As far as it also being a work thing, if you teach at all at the college or university level, you’re used to living with the people you work with and being judged by them more or less constantly. I’ve gotten a great deal of work from it, whether it’s readings or jobs or relationships to editors, so I couldn’t ever act like it’s a time waster.

Social media for writers, well, that means you can take someone’s moment of interest in your career and turn it into a relationship to that reader. Someone reads something you wrote and they search for you on Twitter, and it becomes a way to watch your career, find your work. So in some ways you should treat it a little like any piece of writing you prepare for a reader.

The drawbacks vary according to the form, I think. With Facebook, people overwhelmingly prefer connecting to your personal page rather than your Author page, which can get awkward at times — they know you in one context, and you and your friends know yourself in another. I also always think twice before I connect to someone I know professionally there. An editor interested in you might get really fed up with your Facebook, for example, thanks to the algorithm, which can turn someone you might otherwise enjoy a normal relationship with into the Internet equivalent of a roommate. You don’t want that editor to feel like you’re the guy leaving the milk out on the counter.

Twitter’s biggest drawback is the rough draft of history quality — it can act like a frozen sea of thoughts, half-finished ideas that feel written because you Tweeted them. But instead of bemoaning that, it can be a resource also. Which is to say, if you haven’t, you really should go through your feeds and re-read them periodically, just to see what you’re thinking about. I have students do this. I also have them re-read their favorites this way. Anything you’re not telling yourself is potentially in there — and is potentially a topic for an essay or for fiction.

I recently found your essay “Korean Enough” from a June 2008 issue of『Guernica』; at the time you mentioned you were concerned for students who might feel they have to work and write within a certain “brand” of “Asian American Fiction” or “Korean American Fiction.” Are we working, hoping for the day when terms like “diverse literature” and “Asian American literature” don’t seem necessary — when our stories and our writers just find an audience without that kind of branding? If so, what do you view as the main obstacles in the way?

Concerned, sure. I guess you could say I want the world to be different for them. As I discovered when I was trying to get『Edinburgh』published, publishers have set ideas of what they believe to be true about novels and the public and that’s how they make decisions, no matter what you wrote. Whatever their unconscious idea of a novel is or of a novelist or of the world, that’s what they publish and publish toward — they’re often called gatekeepers, but I would call them world builders in a different sense than we use that phrase — they’re building the culture we all live in, or with.

To the extent that publishing isn’t as diverse as it could be, that is really about how much we who are not white or straight don’t exist to them. When they were asking me “Is it an Asian novel or a gay novel?” that meant they couldn’t imagine me, a gay Asian American man, writing a novel about a gay Asian American man that was neither about being gay nor about being Asian American. The novel was right in front of them and they didn’t seem to understand it. My main character wasn’t trying to come out, nor did the novel describe his struggle with being an immigrant. He was dealing with sexual abuse.

After『Edinburgh』came out, it was reviewed strongly, and the paperback rights were offered. And something like 11 of the 24 houses that rejected it became interested in acquiring the paperback rights. This was incredible to me. I remember I saw Heidi Julavits when I found this out and she shouted, “It’s the same book, right?” I was glad she was appalled because I was thinking, “Is it just me?” One of those houses had no memory of rejecting it; another said “We don’t know why we turned it down.” I tried really hard not to take it personally, but it made me wonder if I was wasting my life trying to be seen by people who just couldn’t see me.

We know there are so many stories that haven’t been told — but who knows how much of it was written? For all of my misfortune, I was lucky all the same:『Edinburgh』had won a prize from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop while in manuscript, The Michener, and that gave me the tenacity to hang on and some money to do that also. How many writers didn’t get something like that and didn’t hang on? I’d bet more than a few. How many novels in which so many of us would feel the life we recognize around us, how many of them don’t get through to print because of the way publishing is so white when the world isn’t?

I feel like that’s what we’re talking about with diversity. If someone’s ignoring you, that’s one thing — at least you exist to them enough for them to ignore you. When you’re not real to them, you’re not even a ghost. You’re not even there.

Who are some of your personal literary obsessions?

Lately, I’ve returned to some old loves: Angela Carter, James Baldwin, George Sand, and Ethan Mordden. A new one is Iris Murdoch. I’m also obsessed with Queequeg from『Moby Dick』. And then lately travel writing that is actually about something, not just retail — reading it and writing it. I’m reading Jan Morris currently,『Last Letters from Hav』.

You just returned from teaching a fiction workshop at Disquiet International in Lisbon. I’m curious about the unique challenges and rewards of teaching with a compressed schedule, like a summer program, as opposed to a class that stretches over an entire semester. Does the short length of time require you to be very organized — stick to a schedule and a plan for what you want to communicate? How much do you map out in advance and how much is based on the response of the students you meet? What emerged as the focus of this particular workshop, for you and your students?

The Lisbon class was organized with a focus on the basics of writing the novel, beginning with character, moving into ways of thinking about plot, structure, subplot, point of view, revision. I offered a mix of writing prompts and short lectures before workshop.

You do have to be a mix of organized and then also give room for what emerges in conversation in class — the students will feel ignored if you’re not responsive to what their concerns are and you just plug on with what you planned. As for what emerged? I was lucky enough to have Mary Gaitskill come to class for a Q&A. And she answered questions about how she wrote『The Other Place』, one of my favorite of her stories. She described essentially bringing one of her fears to life as we all do, imagining something that terrifies us again and again, until she found she had the narrator, and a story. I turned that into a writing exercise: what scares you so much you imagine it again and again? And is it possible there’s a narrator, and a story, there?

I had planned to address the way it is important to write close to your fears, among other things. So often people speak of writing into their passions, but what does that really mean? It sounds like something disgusting to do, but you’re after the things you feel most urgently about. Fear, anger, jealousy, lust, disgust. I was surprised to find it all came together that way. It was more or less spontaneous, a mix of her thinking — which I did not know in advance — and mine, but I couldn’t have planned it better.

As a teacher, what do you think is the most important advice or encouragement you can offer your students? What is the toughest criticism to give?

The most important advice changes. It’s always career advice about whatever nightmare waits for them. Right now I tell them not to write for free, and to safeguard their time. I also warn them to read their contracts — these days contracts with major outlets often sign away rights in perpetuity with the first piece the writer writes. These new contracts effectively lock writers into terms they could fight if they had a lawyer or an agent, but they are offered on pieces they write hoping to find their way to that lawyer or agent. It’s an appalling cruelty, to kneecap writers as they rise. So, read your contracts, insist on payment. Push back. Don’t be rude, just firm. You’d be surprised what you can get by just saying plainly, “I’m sorry, I just can’t sign away all reprint rights to anything I might write for your company for $600.”

The hardest critique to give? I try to remember a student who wrote me after our class years ago and thanked me for telling him what was wrong with his work. Amazingly, no one ever had. “Everyone was always only nice to me and would never tell me what I was doing wrong,” he said. “You were different. I was able to improve with you.” The loneliness of that — of no one telling you what you were doing wrong — stayed with me. However hard a critique is to give, I try to remember that instead — how hard it is to never get it, suffocating instead in niceties.

Let’s say you’re not teaching or traveling; it’s just a day at home and you’ve got writing to do. Do you have a usual routine on days like this?

Yes. I get up and make coffee and breakfast. I have a fondness for elaborate breakfasts I make myself — kimchi fried rice with eggs, or breakfast tacos, or breakfast sandwiches. Also, I like to read in the morning for an hour before writing. I get to my writing studio — I work in one of those shared spaces — no later than 11. I write until 4 or 5. Then I try to get to the rest of my life. But with deadlines that can bleed over, or the day can start earlier. I do think it’s important to commit to a schedule, though, as you can, and as a part of a process whose integrity matters no matter the goal you’re after that day. That protects you, no matter how well the writing itself is going.

How much of the film is based on your own experience?

Yeung: I’ve always felt like a guest in my own home, since I was educated in an English boarding school. Hong Kong has always faced an identity crisis as a result of British colonisation and it is not much different to the American-born Chinese character Ryan. His desire to fit into ‘white’ society is the main reason behind his disregard for Chinese heritage. I have had experience trying to be as British as possible. At the end of the day, we all tend to put up a front and pretend to be something we are not.

Describe the relationship between Ryan and Ning.

Chen: It’s a journey of discovery – literally and physically [laughs]. Having read the script, I thought it was beautifully written, with three-dimensional characters playing off to each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
Choi: At the beginning, there are so many things they hate about each other, yet their differences help them rediscover who they really are. Sometimes we hate someone purely because we are suffering from insecurity. While one person may be proud of their sexuality, another may be ashamed, so they end up detesting it out of jealousy.

Do you find it difficult to be accepted for your identity in today’s society?

Yeung: It really depends on how comfortable you are in your own skin. If you find it difficult then you will undoubtedly try and hide it. It all comes down to insecurity because when everyone is talking about one thing, you don’t want to be the person saying something else.
Choi: I also find it depends on where you are. Ryan’s character says it’s not that difficult to be gay nowadays, but that being said, he was referring to NYC. There are still countries with conservative backgrounds that have people fighting for their lives simply for being who they are.

On that note, is the situation getting any better?

Yeung: Hong Kong is definitely becoming more aware of the LGBTI community with its fair share of events, namely the HKGLFF, and more recently, the Pink Dot event. It’s great to hear that there are more and more celebrities who have become more vocal in recent years. You also see people being more comfortable about their sexuality in public. Though I don’t expect gay marriage to happen overnight, I believe we are heading towards the right direction.

Is it hard being openly gay in the film industry now?

Chen: As a Chinese American auditioning for a role, it’s hard not to feel the pressure of being an Asian actor or play into the stereotypes that have been ingrained into the minds of society. Thankfully there has been more exposure as to what it means to be Asian with TV shows, such as the new ABC comedy ｢Dr Ken｣. For the past few years in a row, each show with Asian leads has outdone the last in being a watershed moment for cultural representation.
Yeung: However, I do find the representation of Chinese people lacking in comparison to gay characters. Asians are still sadly cast in the same stereotypical fashion. It’s one reason why I want to focus on local narratives for my future projects.

What are some of the difficult aspects when dealing with LGBTI issues as a director?

Yeung: I suppose it’s trying to make things as realistic as possible. The conclusion was something that I had to rewrite several times in order to avoid giving the audience a Hollywood ending. Often times, we get a rosy picture of the LGBTI community that in reality is not the case. It’s a bittersweet journey that reveals the sacrifices people make to achieve what they want in life.

｢Front Cover｣ Official release date is to be confirmed.

1) When you were growing up who were your role models on Australian TV & Film?

I actually grew up as a young kid in Papua New Guinea; we didn’t have television reception out there so my grandparents in Sydney would send out the TV guides from back home, and I’d highlight the shows I wanted to be taped, and they would mail back VHS tapes for us to watch. Gary Sweet in ｢Police Rescue｣ was a pretty big part of my life back then. Sadly looking back to my younger years, I don’t recall there being many faces of colour on our screens to look up to.

2) What made you want to break into Australian TV / Film?

I’ve always been motivated to succeed in this industry, as an artist, to be able to tell stories that excite me and in turn excite others. To get people passionate about Australian stories again. My friends and I always bemoan the often heard line “It was good... for an Australian film.” Somewhere along the line our storytelling stopped connecting with the audience: it stopped reflecting the country that many of us are living in; and yet there is a strong push now for new voices to be heard and that is something I want to be a part of.

3) How did you get started in your career?

A fantastic co-op theatre company in Brisbane run by Dr. Errol Bray allowed me to hone my craft as a young actor and recognise the importance of new writing in Australia. It was through performing there that I was asked to audition for a new play at the Queensland Theatre Company – ｢The Estimator｣ written by David Brown. It won the Queensland Premier’s Drama Award in 2006 and I was playing the title role to sold out shows for an extended season. It was a wonderful induction into the industry, and cemented for me the idea that perhaps there was a place for me as an actor in Australia.

Coming from theatre in Brisbane, Film and Television seemed like this unattainable and mysterious thing. I found myself being sent for roles like Asian Gambler in ｢East West 101｣, Asian Nerd in ｢The Strip｣, and Asian Ladyboy in ｢SeaPatrol｣. It wasn’t until I graduated from NIDA that other options started opening up for me, and chances to play interesting characters who were more than their skin colour or racial stereotype started to present themselves. Looking back, I’m kind of glad I never got the part(s).

4) Do you see a positive change to colour blind casting in Australian TV / Film and Theatre?

This is a really tough question to answer, as I can only speak from personal experience and sometimes it seems like we’ve really made it and sometimes it feels like we’re back living in the 50’s. I think we are making baby steps towards a place that reflects the wonderful variety that is our nation. It’s slow, and there’s a long way to go but television is no longer the same as when I was young and diversity on our screens meant the other variations of white like Greek and Italian.

5) What changes would you like to see in the TV & Film industry?

More risks. Some of our countries greatest runaway hits have come from projects that the commercial networks would recoil from. Shows like ｢The Slap｣, ｢Please Like Me｣ and ｢Redfern Now｣ have all found success and audiences here and overseas, and they refused to be safe – from casting to themes and subject matter. Rather than being afraid of what makes us different, we should be embracing it.

6) What more do you want to achieve in the future?

I feel like I’ve barely even begun! I’ve been working for the last few months on the second season of Netflix’s ｢Marco Polo｣. It’s a very big budget, action heavy production requiring hundreds of actors and extras, hours and hours of physical training, fight choreography and punishing hours on set. It’s an incredibly rewarding process, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it, but I’m looking forward to coming back home and getting back to the theatre. Just a stage and that magic connection between the actor and the audience.