On Coming Out to my Hong Kong Mother: A Letter

By Solomon Tsai

Hong Kong Pride Parade 2014 (image via Wikimedia Commons).

Content warning: This article contains references to rejection and suicide which some individuals may find distressing.

My dearest Ma,

As I am writing this, I am cooking myself some frozen dumplings for dinner. I'd like to ask you something; it's been living in my head for the past three years. It's something that we haven't had a proper conversation about. I hope this question, this letter, will finally start it: 

What did I hope to hear from you when I told you that I am gay?

Did I hope that you would accept me? That you'd already known and I’d be your son, no matter what? The act of coming out: a brave, truthful declaration of who I am. And I'm sorry, I did it when I wasn’t sure whether you’d accept my truest self. Because, at the age of fifteen years old, I did not know what it meant to be gay. 

Being gay means that you are at a nightclub at Lan Kwai Fong as a go-go dancer, occasionally offering lap dances to drunk, closeted middle-aged men who are still finding themselves. It means that you're a prostitute offering sex services, recklessly contracting HIV. It makes you the sole bearer of shame by not continuing the family line. Isn't this the quintessential gay experience, in your eyes—my Hong Kong, Chinese mum? 

Let me tell you something: the only thing I knew is that I never fell in love with girls.

On the 5th September 2023, the gavel of Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal came down with a historic ruling: the government must establish an alternative framework to legally recognise same-sex partnerships. This was in response to activist Jimmy Sham’s case, arguing that the city’s lack of policy alternatives is a breach of privacy. Maybe this means I can finally form a family with whoever I love—whomever I am loved by, regardless of gender. My gayness is recognized by a court. My existence is perhaps valid, since I am not erased. Despite the court still rejecting same-sex marriage, local or overseas, this still lit up a flame of hope in me. 

Yet, when I write my poems on the Notes app, I feel my hands disappearing into space. My brain, suspended in time. Only to come back with my head banging on the wall, remembering the fragmented moments of how I lived for the past 18 years. Yes, there's been a court ruling—but will society change along with it? 

Will you change?

Here's a memory that I’ve never shared with anyone else before. When I was in middle school, a school bus picked me up every morning so I could learn about everything on Earth, about Chinese history, and all about Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. There was a boy who sat beside me on the school bus, my first crush— I always felt a tingling sensation in my chest whenever he sat beside me. One day, a classmate whispered into my ear, “Hey, do you like M.?” M. was the boy that sat beside me. “Maybe?” I answered hesitantly, not knowing what my answer should be. In hindsight, I never knew about “liking” a person. The only thing I knew was feeling like clouds, sitting next to my school bus seat-mate, as the morning sun drizzled its rays on my legs. 

A few days later, I learnt about the word “gay”. It was used to make fun of boys being a bit too close to each other. Apparently, “boys liking boys” equals “bad”.

 Ma, am I bad? Am I “disgusting”?

As a Hongkonger, you’d know about the popular 2021 TV show Ossan’s Love—a Japanese rom-com adapted into Cantonese, about an unlucky salaryman whose boss and coworker fell in love with him. Did you know that I watched this show—secretly on my phone? I never wanted you to know, but now I do. This show will surprise you. It was the first of its kind to portray gay people as equally deserving of love, respect, and recognition. This show was something that my LGBTQ friends and I identified with; not something that oppressed us.  

It was the same year I made the fateful decision to come out to you. Perhaps a better word would be “heartbreaking”. Why? Because you stabbed my chest with the following words:

“I do not love you as my son anymore.”

I came out at 3pm, when the same sun that shone on me and my first crush shone on me again. An actor, standing silent under the spotlight, having forgotten all of his lines. Then suddenly, it felt like 3am—I was a stray cat, standing under a beeping traffic light, shivering under the chilling rain, with nowhere to go.

Ma, as a Chinese mother, you ran the house. It was you who taught me how to fold a dumpling. You made sure I had a warm bowl of rice on the table, a roof above my bed every night. You took me to kindergarten even though I wailed for you every day for my first month. You comforted me when I sank into a panic attack as the firecrackers got too loud on Chinese New Year’s Eve. You rushed me to the hospital when I was suffering from pneumonia. You sobbed outside of the intensive care unit. You love me, I know it. Why would you be so cruel as to take that away?

I am not the only one who has experienced this. I even had it better than some Hong Kong teenagers who were literally kicked out of their homes. Others endured physical abuse, emotional abuse. A lesbian friend of mine came out years before me, and she was completely ostracised by her Chinese family. When she came to family events, she was treated like she wasn’t even there. 

On the 18th May 2022, two female students, presumably a young couple, jumped off a building to their deaths. They did not leave a note.

Should I be grateful, since none of these things have happened to me? We were silent, erased, left in the shadows for too long, and we are only starting to be heard. I don't know how to feel about this.

Here’s one last thing: I’ll be flying back to Hong Kong this Christmas vacation. When we meet again, can we still cook dumplings together—mother and son, like we always did?

Sending you my best wishes, and my tears on the page,

Your son, Huai Zhi.