Written by Phoenix, Fung Lam Chan.
Image credit: provided by the author.
“There are no days in our kingdom, only nights. As soon as the sun comes up, our kingdom goes into hiding, for it is an unlawful nation; we have no government and no constitution, we are neither recognised nor respected by anyone, our citizenry is little more than rabble.”
Pai Hsien-Yung and Taiwanese Queer Literature in the 1970s- 1980s
Pai Hsien-Yung is hailed as one of the most influential writers in modern Taiwanese literature. His works frequently explore themes such as identity in diaspora, the relationship between Taiwan and China, family kinship, patriarchy, exile, and marginalised identity, with a particular focus on the conflicts present in father-son relationships and heterosexual family structures. His novel Crystal Boys, first published in 1983, is widely considered one of the earliest and most important novels in Taiwanese and even Sinosphere literature to address male homosexuality. Set in the later stages of martial law imposed by the Nationalist Party government in Taiwan in response to the Chinese Civil War, the novel is steeped in a conservative social context, challenging the mainstream societal attitudes towards homosexuality and depicting the marginalisation faced by homosexuals within families and society.
The story follows the protagonist, A-qing (阿青), who is kicked out of his home by his father because of his sexual orientation. He later meets a group of marginalised youths in New Park, forming an alternative kinship with them, but he continues to struggle with the tensions between self-identity and family responsibility. Simultaneously, the novel showcases how the homosexual community constructs solidarity and a sense of belonging outside the mainstream heterosexual structure, especially within the shared queer spaces established in New Park and the new forms of family and interpersonal relationships.
Family, Masculinity and Sexuality in Crystal Boys
A-qing’s father, a retired soldier, represents a traditional and patriarchal view of masculinity. He values discipline, obedience, and the traditional male role of being strong. Within this patriarchal family structure and due to his father’s violent rejection, A-qing’s homosexuality is not only seen as a deviation from heterosexual norms but also as a failure to meet the standards set by mainstream masculinity. After being expelled from his family, A-qing begins staying in New Park. New Park used to be a secret gathering place for gay men seeking companionship and engaging in sex work who could not exist openly in mainstream society. Therefore, people gathering in New Park established alternative family relationships and a sense of belonging, different from traditional heterosexual family models, through interaction, care, and emotional connection. However, as showcased by Crystal Boys, even if such an alternative kinship system can temporarily provide emotional support and a space for survival, these marginalised groups still yearn for recognition from their families of origin and mainstream society.
State and Society reinforce heterosexuality.
In conservative 1970s and 1980s Taiwanese society, as Huang’s study argues, heterosexuality was reinforced not only by societal expectations but also by the patriarchal family structure. The family institution continuously replicates traditional gender roles and masculine ideals through the father-son relationship. Therefore, the conflict between father and son becomes most evident when A-qing is discovered to have homosexual relations and expelled from the family, leading to a complete breakdown in the father-son relationship. The father’s violent rejection demonstrates how the family’s authority uses a punitive mechanism to reinforce heterosexual norms. Also, this indicates how the patriarchal family viewed heterosexual masculinity as the only legitimate model of masculinity.
In addition to familial rejection, homosexual individuals in the novel also experience intense social stigma and shame under the dominance of heteronormative values. Within early Taiwanese society, homosexuality is often associated with immorality, abnormality, and the failure to fulfil traditional family expectations. As a result, homosexual individuals are forced to exist within secrecy and silence, unable to openly express their sexuality within mainstream society.
Furthermore, this social rejection gradually becomes internalised by A-qing himself. Even after leaving home, A-qing continues to experience emotional conflict and psychological pressure, revealing how heteronormative values continue to shape his self-perception; the novel therefore suggests that the oppression faced by homosexual people is not limited to external discrimination, but also extends to internal feelings of shame, loneliness, and self-doubt.
New Park: Individual resistance and alternative kinship by building queer community and space
Under family oppression, individuals still attempt to find their own identity and way of life amidst this repression. In this sense, with mainstream society placing strong demands to perform normative masculinity and heterosexuality, homosexual people might often find themselves struggling in a contradiction and lost between personal desires and societal norms. Their persistent desire for recognition shows that resistance to the heterosexual family system might never be complete, because patriarchal and masculine values remain deeply internalised within the individual.
Despite the marginalisation of homosexuals within heterosexual family structures and mainstream society, Crystal Boys explores how the queer community can become an alternative space of belonging and survival. In the novel, a great number of gay men whose families abandoned them gathered at New Park. In this secluded social space, they could interact and connect with other marginalised people who share similar experiences of rejection. For those individuals, rejected by the mainstream family system, New Park became a negotiable space and a refuge from mainstream social norms and patriarchal oppression.
Therefore, the gay community in New Park embodies this process, creating a space that neither fully conforms to heterosexual social norms nor completely escapes their constraints. Instead, it establishes an alternative lifestyle, allowing queerness to reshape their identities outside the patriarchal kinship system and progressively accept their homosexuality.
Moreover, the formation of queer kinship in New Park challenges the framework of traditional family, social, and state construction. Because heterosexual family structures are closely linked to social stability, population reproduction, and patriarchal values, the existence of this alternative queer community indirectly weakens the dominance of heterosexual normative ideologies. By establishing new emotional networks and alternative family relationships, it creates a form of resistance against mainstream societal rejection.
However, the novel also suggests that this resistance from marginalised groups is not complete. Though queer spaces can provide temporary belonging and emotional support, homosexual people remain on the margins of society, struggling to gain full acceptance from the mainstream social order. Nevertheless, the formation of the queer community still represents an important attempt to construct alternative identities and social relationships, which also saves lives when people are homeless and hopeless, constructing alternative identities and social relationships that transcend heterosexual norms.
Utopian vision and queer literature influences
By rethinking and analysing the father-son relationship in the novel Crystal Boys, this paper explored how queer literature reveals how masculinity is disciplined by patriarchal authority and ideologised by society and the state. Within this structure, homosexuality is considered taboo within the family, threatening the continuation of heterosexual family kinship systems.
Simultaneously, the novel depicts the protagonist’s inner struggle as an unaccepted homosexual, and how, even after leaving the original family, homosexual people still seek to negotiate their identity within the family structure yet internalise the values and (non)acceptance imposed by heterosexual norms.
The alternatives mentioned in the novel for the queer community allow them to gain breathing space outside mainstream society and establish alternative family relationships. Crystal Boys offers a vision in which marginalised groups seek new definitions of possibility. However, while this queer space challenges the patriarchal family structure and establishes possibilities beyond heterosexuality, the marginalised, such as homosexual and queer individuals, remain oppressed, and their resistance continues because compulsory sexuality continues to be enforced and reproduced, and heterosexuality is still the dominant one in society.
More than 40 years after its publication, Crystal Boys still remains influential in the Sinosphere and even worldwide. It asks a question that is politically and emotionally linked to history and the existence of homosexual or other marginalised groups: can queer individuals ever belong within institutions built upon heterosexual family structures? Pai does not offer a simple answer. Instead, he gives hope in this novel, suggesting that queer people can build up a community and negotiate the social space within hetero-patriarchal society.
In contemporary society, queer communities may be more able to speak up compared to what is described in the beginning of the novel: “Our” (queer community) kingdom can only exist in the night; “we” must hide before the sun rises. While discrimination has not disappeared today, decades of social and political change have created new hope for queer communities that was unimaginable when the novel was first published. Pai’s contributions to the gay and queer communities are undeniable. Although he benefited from certain privileges associated with his father, a military veteran, his works draw deeply on his own experiences of being a homosexual and his life journey, encouraging us to examine and better understand the power relations embedded within them. Therefore, raising public awareness of the issues explored in his works is equally important in further promoting social diversity and fostering a more inclusive society.
Phoenix, Fung Lam Chan (she/her), was born in Hong Kong and has a background in BA Chinese literature from National Chengchi University (NCCU) in Taiwan. Currently studying at SOAS, University of London, in an MA in Gender Studies. Her research interests span Sinosphere literature, East Asian studies, and Japanese popular culture, with a particular emphasis on gender and feminism. Currently, she is researching gender, intimacy, and romantic relationships in manga.