As per request, some LGBT vocab for you. (I had no idea what that term stood for, so thanks for broadening my vocabulary). If you don’t care about this kind of stuff, please read on nevertheless, the characters are useful and common (and not queer at all)!
The formal term for homosexuality is 同性恋, and it’s probably just as neutral as its literal equivalent “same-sex love”. 同性恋者 is the term for homosexual person. Let’s break the term down:
同
tong2
EQUAL, SAME. One mouth under one roof (or rather, many ideas lumped together under one umbrella) indicates conformity.
性
xing4
SEX, NATURE (=personality), CHARACTER. The heart is the seat of feeling and thinking in ancient lore, so it seems appropriate that that which is born 生 (sheng1) from the heart 心 (xin1, in this character it appears as the even more stylised side-heart radical) is a person’s character.
恋
lian4
YEARN, LOVE. Below, the “heart” appears again, of course it’s a typical element of poetic descriptions of love. Above this, we can find a part that’s rather non-descript, it appears in 变 (bian4, change)as well, so let’s say, love that comes from the heart is unalterable (a bit Shakepearean, hm?). Note that the traditional form includes “confusion”.
者
zhe3
SOMEONE WHO, THAT WHICH, -ER, -IST. Consists of the upper part of 老(lao3, old, persistently) and 日 (ri4, day). So if you do something again and again, day after day, you are defined by that activity.
Another general term is less technical: 同性爱
爱
ai4
LOVE. It’s got the “claw” radical over “friend” 友 (you3), so when you’re able to grab the heart of someone who used to be your friend…
Formerly used terms (note that they only describe male homosexuality) are 断袖之癖 (duan4xiu4 zhi1 pi3, “the habit of the cut off sleeve”); 男风 (nan2feng1″male style”) or 分桃 (fen1tao2, “the divided peach”). They are, as you can guess rather obscure and would sound weird in modern context. (If someone can enlighten me as to what these expressions refer to, I’d be glad.)
风
feng1
WIND, STYLE, TREND. Look like a storm in a water glass that’s turned upside down. It’s the feng of fengshui.
断
CUT (OFF), SEVER, ABSOLUTELY. Looks like an ax 斤 (jin1) hitting a distribution board/ circuit breaker panel (Which is surely going to go bust).
分
fen1
DIVIDE; SEPARATE, SHARE, MINUTE. A knife 刀 (dao1) cutting up an 8 八(ba1).
Like with the word “gay”, there are self-fashioned terms with a more positive connotation that are becoming more widespread.
同 志 (tong2zhi4), literally “comrade”, is a euphemism that arrived in mainland China via Taiwan. It does refer to “like-minded individuals” and “comrades-in-politics-and-arms” as well.
志
zhi4
WILL, ASPIRATION, SIGN, IDEAL. Consists of 士 (here a phonetic) and 心. So someone who fights like a knight 士 (shi4) for what’s in his heart 心 is a person with strong will.
玻璃 is a little funny at first glance. It means glass. But of you look at the pronunciation bo1li, the first letters spell BL, which stands for boys’ love.
So, what about the lesbians? The use the terms 拉子 (la1zi) or 拉拉 (la1la1) or in fact other variations of the English word. The lesbian scene seems to be much smaller, and there are no places like parks where they can find intercourse offered, unlike their male counterparts (these areas exist only in big cities).
You might wonder whether homosexuality is accepted in China. Well, you’re not going to get into real trouble for it, there are clubs and everything but the parents won’t be happy at all if they found out about the orientation of their child. A survey was created recently http://peijinchen.com/blog/2008/06/18/li-yinhe-on-chinese-attitudes-towards-homosexuality-ten-questions/
Though, bear in mind that there is an abundance of stereotypes (linking them to AIDS, for example) and discrimination and that no steps will be taken in the future since the official stance is not to “promote” it.
Hong Kong is stricter, but I’m not sure about the legislation there.
There are some interesting films to be found online, if you happend to be interested, like Lanyu (蓝宇), Spider Lilies (刺青), Farewell my Concubine (霸王别姬) or Formula 17 (17歲的天空).
别
bie2
OTHER(S), DON’T. The knife element indicates separation, hence OTHER. The mouth hints at the exclamation “DON’T”, and the negation is brought in by the knife as well.
Food for thought: If we accept the commonly mentioned percentage of about 6,5% of the population having homosexual tendencies, that means almost 85 million people in China should be gay, more than the population of, let’s say, Germany or France.
