In fact, I was excited to see what it would be like. Not only because I was sure it would pop off, but because for the first time nearly everyone else would also be South East Asian. Yet I am quite sure that I definitely missed the brightest and most vibrant parts of the queer community. More than that, I definitely missed the community and getting in with the crowd. The more underground a community, the more it pops off - so I guess at least I know it pops the fuck off.
My coming out of the closet was nothing dramatic or scary. Bar the classic baby gay stumbles, it felt really natural. I took any and all challenges in my stride. Thinking that they just came with the territory. I never stopped twice to think that, perhaps, certain intersections of my identity had become tangled and were tripping me up.
Until now. Just be a body with no strings attached. No attachment to what it means to live where I live, do what I do and know who I know.
No attachment to old flings. No attachment to my family 9, kilometres away. Let alone my family members and other people who know me. From what I can tell, queerness in Vietnam is a mixed bag. Like Aotearoa, colonisation dealt the ultimate fuck you to queer identity and the lasting impacts still affect social attitudes today. The place I interned at had a massive pride flag on the wall.
My gay spidey sense popped off a few times a day. And the first time I booked a massage with my girl friend, we accidentally booked a couples massage for ourselves. Safe to say, I was feeling confident in being open all the time and with that came a chance to be more confident in my identity than I ever had in Aotearoa.
