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oracleandbone · 4 months

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I'll Be Dreamin'

We’re excited to announce the Korean translation of A Summer’s End is now available! Thank you to Team K.E.D. for providing the translations. The Korean language option can be accessed by updating the game to the latest version and selecting it in the settings menu.

In celebration of our recent update, A Summer’s End will be taking part in the Steam and itch.io winter sale starting December 21-January 4. We hope you enjoy the update! We with everyone happy holidays from our team!

#a summer's end #lgbt #wlw #hong kong #visual novel #lgbtq+#illustration #oracle & bone #indie game #Michelle Cheung #Sam Wong #a summer's end - Hong Kong 1986 #ase #asian lgbtq

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wlwcatalogue · 9 months

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Female Queer Icons of Hong Kong // Yam Kim Fai (任劍輝) and Pak Suet Sin (白雪仙)

Photo 1: Promotional photo for 1955 contemporary movie The Model and the Car (玉女香車) (no video available) (Source: LCSD Museum Collection Search Portal)

Photo 4: Photo from Sin Fung Ming Opera Troupe's 1958 trip

Photo 5: Photo from a 1962 newspaper feature on Yam, Pak, and others at their (?) summer villa in Central, Hong Kong

Photo 6: Christmas celebrations with Yam, Pak, and their protégés of the Chor Fung Ming Troupe

Far and away the most iconic duo in Cantonese opera, Yam Kim Fai (任劍輝) and Pak Suet Sin (白雪仙) – commonly referred to simply as Yam-Pak (任白) – were famed for their partnership both on and off the stage… Click below to learn more!

Edit on 28/07/2023: Updated to link to a photo of the entrance to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum’s Pop Culture 60+ exhibit, and to add information regarding Yam and Pak's marriage status.

Iconic? How?

Yam-Pak are the face of Cantonese opera; you can't talk about the latter without mentioning the former. It's to the point where a gigantic picture of them graces the entrance to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum’s permanent exhibition on Hong Kong pop culture’s evolution across the past 60 years (“Hong Kong Pop 60+”) - they are the first thing you see upon entering!

Best known as the originators - with Yam playing the male leads and Pak the female leads - of five masterpieces of Cantonese opera, namely:

1. Princess Cheung Ping (帝女花) 2. The Legend of the Purple Hairpin (紫釵記) 3. The Dream Tryst in the Peony Pavilion (牡丹亭驚夢) 4. The Reincarnation of Lady Plum Blossom (再世紅梅記) 5. Butterfly and Red Pear Blossom (蝶影紅梨記) (Note: Princess Cheung Ping, Purple Hairpin, and Butterfly and Red Pear Blossom were made into abridged movie versions, with the Sin Fung Ming troupe members reprising their roles from the theatre productions. Also, the "Fragrant Sacrifice" (香夭) duet from Princess Cheung Ping (movie clip) is one of - if not the most - famous songs in Cantonese opera.)

Yam and Pak were the leading pair and co-founders of the legendary Sin Fung Ming Opera Troupe (仙鳳鳴劇團; 1956-1961), which is widely held to have pushed Cantonese opera forward as an artform due to Pak and scriptwriter Tong Tik Sang’s (唐滌生) emphasis on poetic libretti and adapting source material from Chinese literature and history. (Note: it has been common practice since the 1930's for Cantonese opera troupes to be founded by key actor(s).)

They were also very active in the Hong Kong film industry in the 1950's, being paired in over 40 movies together across roughly 8 years. One of those – the aforementioned Butterfly and Red Pear Blossom (蝶影紅梨記) – is the sole Cantonese opera movie on the Hong Kong Film Archive’s 100-Must See Hong Kong Movies list (IMDB list / archived version of the official PDF). It's a well-deserved inclusion - check out this beautifully-shot dance scene.

Even their post-retirement activities had a significant effect on the industry! In the early 1960’s, they held auditions for prospective students and provided - for free - systematic, hands-on training to those who passed; Yam and Pak even hired other veterans to teach skills they personally were not as familiar with. Prior to this, apprentices were expected to learn primarily from observing their masters, and to pay handsomely for the privilege. Yam-Pak’s methods proved exceedingly effective: the Chor Fung Ming Opera Troupe (雛鳳鳴劇團; 1963-1992) starring their apprentices reigned supreme in the 1970’s-1980’s. Following this success, Cantonese opera institutes - most notably the major 1900s-era guild, the Chinese Artists Association of Hong Kong (八和會館) - started to offer systematic coaching to young hopefuls in the 1980's.

Okay, so why are they queer icons specifically?

The lazy answer is that they're queer icons because nearly all of Yam's roles were male, so Gender is involved by default, and since most hit Cantonese operas of the time were romances, that means you get to see two female actors performing being in love onscreen (and also on stage, but there aren't any video recordings from back then). So far, so Takarazuka Revue.

Female actors playing male roles in Cantonese opera To give some context, each Cantonese opera performer specialises in one of four major role-types, and Yam was a sung (生) - i.e. an actor specialised in playing standard male roles. Female sung were fairly common in the 1910's-1930's due to women being banned from performing with men during that period, but when the ban lifted in the mid-1930's, many troupes shifted towards cis-casting. Yam was pretty much the only one whose popularity survived the transition. Just take a look at the huge number of Cantonese opera movies produced during the 1950’s-1960’s – you’ll be hard-pressed to find a female sung other than Yam, let alone one with top billing. Happily, thanks to Yam's immense popularity, her profilic film career (over 300 movies!), and the prominence of Sin Fung Ming works in the Cantonese opera canon, there has been a resurgence in female sung which endures to this day. Two noteworthy examples are Yam's protégé Sabrina Lee/ Loong Kim Sang (龍劍笙) - a star in her own right - and Joyce Koi/ Koi Ming Fai (蓋鳴暉), one of the biggest names still active in the industry. (Note: perhaps due to cinema being more "realistic" in nature, Yam's early movies often involved her playing female characters cross-dressing as men, including in some Cantonese opera movies. However, she received increasingly more male roles as her fame grew, and from the mid-1950's onwards she was playing male characters onscreen nearly exclusively-- even in non-Cantonese opera movies! See Photo 1 above.)

What sets Yam and Pak apart is that they were particularly known for their chemistry. Long before Sin Fung Ming's formation in 1956, the advertising copy for their first Cantonese opera movie together - Frolicking with a Pretty Maid in the Wineshop (酒樓戲鳳, 1952) - declared "Only this movie has Yam-Pak flirting on the silver screen" (source - 華僑日報 1952/05/23-26). And indeed, they were popular for their flirtatious duets: their Cantonese opera works invariably contained at least one, and such scenes made it into some of non-Cantonese opera (i.e. "contemporary") movies too. In fact, there are not one but two contemporary movies where Yam and Pak's characters are not paired up and yet still sing a duet together in such a way that their significant other(s) become convinced that the two are in romantically interested in each other - see 1952's Lovesick (為情顛倒) and 1956's The Happy Hall (滿堂吉慶) - a weirdly specific situation which doesn't crop up in the other, non-Yam-Pak movies I have seen.

Speaking of contemporary movies, let's talk about a certain plotline that keeps cropping up in works featuring the both of them and where Yam plays a woman! Six of the eleven movies which fit that criteria involve Yam's character cross-dressing as a man (a common characteristic across Yam's handful of female roles), and Pak's character falling for her. Nothing ever comes of it, of course, but, um. It was certainly a trend. Actually, even their very first movie together - 1951's Lucky Strike (福至心靈) - falls into this category.

Such storylines, and the emphasis on their chemistry, are particularly interesting given that both Yam and Pak remained ostensibly unmarried throughout. This was unusual for female performers of their stature, who tended to wed in their twenties, often to fellow-actors or wealthy men (e.g. Hung Sin Nui/紅線女, Fong Yim Fun/芳艷芬, and Tang Pik Wan/鄧碧雲)... In contrast, by the time Yam-Pak retired from the stage in 1961, they were both over 30 years old and without husbands.

Also, did I mention they were popularly believed to be living together? There doesn't seem to be any conclusive evidence either way... although it's a little strange that separate newspaper pictorials depicting "Yam at home" and "Pak at home" seem to be of the same location... however what is conclusive is that they did spent a lot of time together offstage. Pak has talked about how when they had no guests over, Yam would watch TV by herself while Pak was in the living room (source - p93), and protégé Mandy Fung/ Mui Suet Sze (梅雪詩) has said that Pak would sometimes cook for Yam at home (source - 03:53~). They would also celebrate birthdays, New Year's, and Christmas together (see Photo 6 for an example of the latter).

Shortly after Yam's passing in 1989, Pak set up the Yam Kim Fai and Pak Suet Sin Charitable Foundation (任白慈善基金) to support the arts and provide welfare for the elderly. In 1996, Pak made a large donation to Hong Kong University, resulting in one of the buildings being renamed Yam Pak Building (任白樓) in thanks (source).

Thanks for reading! Please feel free to DM me or send an ask if you have any questions, or are just interested in learning more.

If you made it here, have this bonus piece of trivia - Yam and Pak were also well-acquainted with Hong Kong's preeminent queer icon, Leslie Cheung (張國榮), who was a massive fan of theirs. Sadly there don't seem to be any pictures of them before Yam's passing, but here's one of Pak (centre) having afternoon tea with Cheung (left) and his long-term romantic partner Daffy Tong (唐鶴德) (right) at the Cova cafe in the Pacific Place shopping mall.

#wlw recommendations #sapphic #lgbtq #asian lgbtq #hong kong #theatre #cantonese opera #chinese opera #yam kim fai #leslie cheung #pak suet sin #yampak #yambak #pak sheut sin #bak sheut sin #hong kong queer icons #not me hastily adding tags because i keep forgetting certain ones

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scarefox · 2 years

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List of things BL dramas ruined for me (and by ruin I mean made them better)

Coconut

Cactus

Ducati

Maserati

Porsche

Hedgehogs

the act of holding a cup of warm coffee

color names

red string

Oishi drinks

engineering

rubber ducks

:):

product placements

bad luck days

tea scented sachets

lightning motives on clothes

mafia (jk)

buttonup shirts (3 Buttons open!)

Lays

Ramen noodles

FWB

cat ear headbands

soulmate trope

ghosts

office jobs

bed sheets

#the fact that some of them apply to multiple BLs #bl drama #bl dramas #asian lgbtq #i told sunset about you #manner of death #KinnPorsche #cutie pie the series #Vice Versa #The Eclipse #color rush #until we meet again #bad buddy #utsukushii kare #what the duck #mr unlucky has no choice but to kiss #a tale of thousand stars #not me the series

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ladychlo · 2 years

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Since I've talked about My.Kali Magazine, I want to introduce you to another LGBTQ+ magazine called Cold Cuts Magazine : a photo journal exploring queer culture and the South West Asian and North African region.

On their website you'll find their the fourth edition "TREAT ME LIKE YOUR MOTHER" (free to download) that pays tribute to trans women and femme men who have been largely erased from Beirut’s history.

#another fav magazine #representation matter #cold cuts magazine #lgbtq #arab lgbtq #asian lgbtq #african lgbtq #trans #queer

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luigisvampirebae · 2 years

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I identify as queer, genderfluid, and gray asexual.

My pronouns are primarily they/them.

Happy National Coming Out Day to all my fellow members of the LGBTQ+ community. 🏳️‍🌈 ❤️

#lgbtqplus #lgbtq positivity #black lgbt #gray asexual #queer #lgbtq #asian LGBTQ #desi lgbt #national coming out day #lgbt #lgbtqia #lgbtq poc #lgbt writers

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moviesstoriesandbooks · 2 years

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Togawa is SOOOO done with him istg🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😝

#idiots in love #old fashion cupcake #japanese yaoi #asianlgbtqdramas #asian lgbtq #lgbtq #togawa x nozue

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peachyblkdemonslayer · 1 year

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A GL with a black and brown leads and the black one isn't the masculine!!! It's a reboot for this version but it's really nice so far

https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/shining-star-gl/list?title_no=833310

#shining star #gl comic #black lgbtq #asian lgbtq #queer comics #me talking

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the-little-robyn · 2 years

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It's the best month of the year

HAPPY PRIDE YA'LL

Wishing all queer folks out there a happy and safe pride month.

- friendly neighborhood chaotic bisexual.

#pride #pride month #pride 2022 #happy pride 🌈#bisexual #bi pride #wlw #sapphic #queer #lgbtq+#asian lgbtq #queer asian

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oracleandbone · 10 months

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Is It Love You're After? I've got to make sure it's alright If I should let you love me tonight

We're excited to introduce everyone to Maiya and Mabel! They'll be featured in our upcoming game, In the Ocean I Learned to Float. Please look forward to our future updates. We can't wait to share more soon.

For now, we hope you enjoy our summer sale on Steam and itch.io. It will run from June 28 till July 13. Get your SPF 30 or greater sunscreen on and let's head to the ocean! STEAM / ITCH

#a summer's end #wlw #hong kong #visual novel #lgbt #in the ocean i learned to float #art #lgbtq+#lgbtq #indie game #LGBTQ games #asian lgbtq #illustration #original art #oracle & bone

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wlwcatalogue · 5 months

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Screening Announcement! (Dec 10th & 17th, 2023)

Update as of 6 Dec 2023: There are still decent seats left for the 6pm & 9pm showings on Dec 10th, and for all four screenings on Dec 17th!

If anyone here will be in Hong Kong this December 10th or 17th (both Sundays), and has even a passing interest in Yam Kim Fai and Pak Suet Sin (see my post on them here), queerness in East Asia and/or the 1950’s, or Chinese opera, I strongly urge you to go to one of the eight screenings of the restored version of Butterfly and Red Pear Blossom (蝶影紅梨記)!

Not only is it a great romantic comedy (yes, really), it’s also a very rare opportunity to see a classic Cantonese opera movie – or indeed any black and white Hong Kong movie – with English subtitles and in 4K resolution. For a taster, check out this excellent dance scene (not 4K) and this video from the Hong Kong Film Archive about their restoration efforts!

On top of that, it’ll be showing in the cinema of the storied Sunbeam Theatre (新光戲院), which opened in 1972 and is Hong Kong’s last commercial Cantonese opera theatre. (It must be added that being able to go there will soon become an even rarer opportunity; the venue will sadly be closing in 2025 as heritage is apparently a joke in Hong Kong.)

Here's a quick outline of the story for those who need a bit more convincing:

Penned by the Shakespeare of Cantonese opera, Tong Tik Sang (唐滌生), this retelling of Yuan-dynasty opera Tale of Red Pear Flower (謝金蓮詩酒紅梨花) starts off fairly sober - courtesan So-chau (Pak Suet Sin) and scholar Chiu Yu-chau (Yam Kim Fai) are long-distance lovers, but before they are able to meet in person for the first time, So-chau is forced to fake her death to avoid being sent off to a barbarian warlord. But then it morphs into an unexpected romantic comedy: in her escape, So-chau ends up at a relative’s house… only to find that Chiu will be moving in as a guest there that very night. Unfortunately for her, she’s been forbidden by her uncle from disclosing her identity for fear of disrupting Chiu’s studies, and Chiu is extraordinarily – albeit adorably – dumb. Apart from the two leads being played by women, it’s really easy to read queer themes into how So-chau is desperate with longing and yet unable to directly articulate her desires and identity, permitted only to hint and nudge. (As is the movie as a whole in some ways, since Hong Kong movies of that era were very prudish; even heterosexual kisses weren’t allowed onscreen.) Chiu, kind-hearted but oblivious, echoes the familiar figure of the queer crush. Also, Pak plays So-chau with the thirstiness of a marathon runner who hasn’t had a drop of water since the start of the race, so there’s that to enjoy too :)

Tickets are available on the Cityline website for HK$70 each (linked here – change the language to English by clicking “Eng” in the menu); note that you’ll need to make an account to make a purchase. Dec 10th and Dec 17th will both have four screenings each (12pm, 3pm, 6pm, and 9pm), but seating is very limited so you should definitely buy your ticket sooner rather than later!

#wlw recommendations #asian lgbtq #hong kong #cantonese opera #chinese opera #yam kim fai #pak suet sin #hong kong queer icons #yampak #yambak #pak sheut sin #bak sheut sin #theatre

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walaranisiyabai · 2 years

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You know you're aro/ace when (sex and love repulsed version [not professionally approved check list])

You planned your dream funeral instead of dream wedding at such a young age

You genuinely hate it when people especially the older ones tease you about you romantically liking someone

You choose the most well known schoolmate/classmate as your crush everytime someone asks you who your crush is (I mean, they are the most "logical" choice)

You lose interest when they start talking about romance

You are more interested in observing none human creatures instead of your fellow human

You feel a disconnect between your peers

You feel like you're behind your peers in sexual development

YOU HAVE A LOT OF HOBBIES

#aroace #aro/ace #aro #ace #aromantic #asexual #ace culture #add more if you want #this is from personal experience #lgbtqia+#lgbtq #asian lgbtq

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bisexualdazaiosamu · 2 years

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does anyone have any resources on bisexual/transgender history within the south east asian region? please dm me if there are!

#bisexuality #bisexual history #transgender #transgender history #asian lgbtq #asian lgbtq history #bisexual pride #transgender pride

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