A gay, Thursday. Photo: Guo Yingguang
By the usual gang of 818ers
Global Times is gayer than the other English daily, bitchez. This is Queen8, and today I'm writing this gossip column. There's been some confusion, but in this town 818 sounds like bayiba. That's Chinese for gossip, and that's what we do here. Loose talk about the things local Beijingers talk about amongst themselves. News goes on the front page. Unless you are the other English daily. Actually, Queen8 was impressed with their story about China's first public gay marriage. And hats off on beating us on the story about gay websites being shut down. But don't try to out-gay us. Just yesterday we had our own story about gay websites fighting back against censorship, a profile of a beefcake gay tutor complete with a huge nude (albeit cropped) photo, and some of our wall-to-wall Mr Gay China coverage. Not to mention our twice-monthly LGBT column, which Time Out G&L columnist Dinah Gardner mistakenly says is apparently called “The X-man Experience.” She also correctly points out it's been filed in the Health & Fo
od section online (although not in the print edition). We think she may have been being snarky, but we'll let it go because (a) we used her column to help persuade the powers that be that we should have our own and (b) we like it so much we asked her to contribute for us. Perhaps she's still annoyed we wouldn't pay her enough. But we're not bitter. And we'd still like her to write for us.
We also want the other English daily's Huang Hung to write for us, joining our roster of ironic celebrity columnists including Tony Dice, Oscar, and Alessandro. She wrote a very funny story that ironically warns foreigners to stay away from chicken feet, sea cucumbers and fireworks. Despite the ridiculous tone and exaggerated assertions, some foreigners seemed quite offended. One called her a “racist.” Another said the article shows foreigners how Chinese feel when they read biased and offensive articles in the Western media. The whole thing seems a little dramatic, but all the demands for apologies make Queen8 think Westerners don't respect free speech or irony as much as they let on.
Queen8 wants to take this opportunity to say that not only is the Global Times gayer and (with the exception of Huang Hung) funnier, we also have better reporting. Compare, for example, our stories on Google.
Xiao8, the youngest member of our team, hears that some people get threatened and personalize matters when the status quo starts to change, and develop a fearsome personal grudge against the agent of change. The knives are out. Pick a side.
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