{"id":30,"date":"2008-01-14T22:01:13","date_gmt":"2008-01-14T14:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mdnphoto.com\/visionsofmodernity\/2008\/01\/14\/yang-on-yang-homosexuality-and-the-dao\/"},"modified":"2008-01-14T22:01:13","modified_gmt":"2008-01-14T14:01:13","slug":"yang-on-yang-homosexuality-and-the-dao","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matthewniederhauser.com\/research\/2008\/01\/14\/yang-on-yang-homosexuality-and-the-dao\/","title":{"rendered":"Yang on Yang: Homosexuality and the Dao"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Zhi<\/a>\"Lou<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Homosexuality in China doesn\u2019t elicit the same cross-burning fanaticism that it does in the United States. In all my time spent here I never heard of a hate crime aimed at a homosexual. Chances are that such occurrences might not get reported or covered in the media, and discrimination certainly exists in various guises, but I have yet to encounter people who label homosexuality as \u201cevil\u201d and support its whole scale eradication. Instead, sexual deviance tends to inspire curiosity and awkwardness amongst typical Chinese urban dwellers. It remains a latent oddity within the social milieu.<\/p>\n

It still came as a bit of a surprise when Dinah Gardner, the longtime Gay & Lesbian columnist for TimeOut Beijing, told me we were going to the White Cloud Temple and the Source of Law Temple to ask monks about their respective views on homosexuality. Even though I consider myself well versed within the Daoist and Buddhist canon, it never really crossed my mind to ask such a question before and I was interested in how the monks would frame their responses. As the photographer, I could also sit back and watch the fireworks fly.<\/p>\n

Lou Jiayong, a Daoist monk at the White Cloud Temple, was the first to get entrapped by Dinah. She started the interview with some elementary questions concerning Daoism and then popped him the big one: \u201cIn the West, Islam and Christianity often persecute homosexuals. How does Daoism feel about homosexuality amongst practitioners?\u201d Lou handled the question surprisingly well. According to Daoist principle, homosexuality represents a metaphysical problem. The union of two Yang forces (male on male) creates disharmony within the Dao and must eventually be resolved. \u201cIf there is only Yin or Yang it is imbalance or disharmony,\u201d stressed Lou. Homosexual relationships do not perpetuate natural life. At some point, Yin must mix with Yang to produce more babies. Lou did emphasize that Daoism would never discriminate against homosexuals but remained adamant that Daoist ideology could never condone what he considered lewd sexual acts and anomalies in the natural course of existence.<\/p>\n

Zhi Yong, a Buddhist monk at the Source of Law Temple, remained unperturbed throughout his interview. Buddhist practitioners of any orientation are encouraged to stem their sexual desires in order to achieve inner peace. At the heart, there is no absolute right or wrong with regards to homosexuality. Zhi continued, \u201c[Homosexuality] is abnormal to me, but of course from the point of view of a gay person, it is quite normal\u2026 In Buddhism everything has two sides. How can you say, \u2018this is right,\u2019 or, \u2018this is wrong?\u2019 There is no right or wrong in this world. For some people they are right, for others they are wrong.\u201d While I might not support such moral ambiguity in other situations, being gay and Buddhist doesn\u2019t represent a problem for lay people. Still, if you want to join a monastery you must leave any prurient thoughts at the door.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Homosexuality in China doesn\u2019t elicit the same cross-burning fanaticism that it does in the United States. In all my time spent here I never heard of a hate crime aimed at a homosexual. Chances are that such occurrences might not get reported or covered in the media, and discrimination certainly exists in various guises, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,12],"tags":[39,57,79,118,207,265,327,341,358],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-portraits_category","category-society_category","tag-beijing","tag-buddhism","tag-china","tag-daosim","tag-homosexuality","tag-metaphysics","tag-religion","tag-sexuality","tag-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewniederhauser.com\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewniederhauser.com\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewniederhauser.com\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewniederhauser.com\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewniederhauser.com\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/matthewniederhauser.com\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/matthewniederhauser.com\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewniederhauser.com\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matthewniederhauser.com\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}