Diary aims to shed light on homosexuality in Vietnam
Thanh Nien DailyVietnam
His name means bravery, and that’s what it took for Nguyen Van Dung to talk about life in “the third world” – a reference in Vietnam not to poverty but to the gay and lesbian community.
At 41, he has decided to lay bare almost everything in a tell-all diary called “Bong,” a slang term for homosexuals, written by two local journalists after more than 300 hours of taped interviews with him.
Very few gay people publicly come out in Vietnam.
Homosexuality is still a largely taboo subject in the traditionally patriarchal society, long ruled by Confucian social mores and Buddhist beliefs.
Many gay men, Dung says in the book, have struggled with deep shame for not meeting societal expectations – marrying, building a family, taking over the house, caring for their ageing parents and producing male offspring.
“If you were born gay,” he writes, “no matter whether you are a man or a woman, you were born at a bad time, on a bad day, in a bad month, in a bad year, under a very bad star.”
Dung, with a tattooed arm and an unusually deep voice, was somewhat of a lady-killer in his 20s, according to friends, but eventually came out three years ago, having spent a lifetime hiding his sexuality.
“I used to think that I was ill,” he writes.
“Only now can I really understand that gays are normal people in terms of health and intellect. We are only different in terms of our sexual tendency.”
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