What organizers bill as “Shanghai's first ever PRIDE festival to celebrate Shanghai's diverse and quickly growing LGBTQI community” starts this weekend (Sunday June 7). It includes a busy week of activities through Sunday June 14, culminating with an all-day-all-night festival on Saturday, June 13. Although the semi-independent city of Hong Kong had a low-key pride march earlier this year, Shanghai’s Pride week is the first such event in mainland China.
ShanghaiPRIDE spokesperson Hannah Miller said, “Shanghai is undoubtedly China’s most liberal and progressive city and it is the logical choice to host Mainland China’s first gay pride festival. It speaks volumes for China’s advancement that such an event can now be organized - it shows that China is becoming a modern, tolerant and forward-thinking nation.”
Panel discussions, literary readings, and film screenings fill the schedule for the next week.
China’s first major LGBTQ Pride event opens in Shanghai [contd.]
The website Shanghaist has been covering the event for months. It reports, “Organized by Shanghai LGBT, a non-profit group, the event will raise money for Chi Heng Foundation’s China AIDS Orphan Project through a raffle.”
The big party next weekend includes a schedule that sounds remarkably like similar events in most large Western cities. It starts with a “Hot Body” competition, and features performances by LGBT choirs and drag artists and ends with an after-party featuring “DJ Leather Locklear”. Shanghaist points out that next week’s “Big Bash” will also feature, “Chinese opera singers, fashion models, face painters, tarot card readers, gay bar competition and hot dog eating contest, and capoeria and drumming performance.”
Co-founder of Shanghai LGBT and Shanghai Pride, Tiffany Lemay, said of the event, ‘…last year, we saw the Beijing Olympics described as “China’s coming out” party. Now China is really coming out - this time from the closet.’