Wednesday 25 December 2013

The Sydney Star Observer

Interestingly I sent an email to the editor of the Sydney Star Observer. Not for any reason other than I was merely trying once again to touch base with someone in gay Sydney and hopefully gain the addition of a local follower to this blog (most people following this blog are overseas).

This was the reply from Elias Jahshan the editor of Sydney Star Observer;
"I am not convinced this is newsworthy enough for a story in the paper just yet. Open to other ideas/angles in the future, though. Thanks for taking the time to send me an email about it. Hope it's a successful blog for you."
Say what?  Story in the newspaper? I had no expectations of my blog being mentioned in any gay publication, in fact that would be ironic lol. We all know how the Sydney gay ...er.... um.... well we know how non-communal it is. No I just wanted to introduce you to the blog Elias Jahshan, but thank you for expressing your self importance anyway.

Monday 23 December 2013

Part 10 - The Truth About Being Gay in Sydney Australia - His Name Was Hank Part 2

It was the darkest and most loneliest point of my life


It was a Sunday evening a few weeks before the Easter long weekend. Choi had been out late again and I was in the kitchen doing the dishes for the meal I cooked for both of us. He walked in the front door and straight into the kitchen and without looking at me declared "I want out"

I felt a sudden feeling of ice run through my entire body. It was as if he told me I was going to die. Of course I suspected this day would come, but I hadn't secured a job yet and I had no money in my bank account (Choi insisted that he handle all the finances and any money we made was held in an account in his name). I recall I actually whimpered like a puppy that had been injured and all I could do was choke out "I love you" but he turned away and went upstairs. I stood there at the kitchen sink gripping it tightly as my knees felt weak and before I could summon the strength to follow him up the stairs Choi returned with a suitcase. "Pack your clothes and get out!" he demanded.

I was stunned. My mind began to race and suddenly I felt it go into some kind of robotic emergency mode and as I let go of the sink I'd been gripping I stood tall, facing Choi straight on I yelled "But I have no where to go". "Alright", he said coldly, "You have a week then if you're not out I'm changing the locks" and with that he walked out the front door.

I didn't see Choi again after that. The following day I borrowed some money and found a small run down self contained flat in the back yard of a dilapidated home. Before that week was over I left my home. I tried contacting Choi through his office and his mobile, but he didn't answer.

The following day I'd moved out of my home I returned to the house to try and salvage a few things I couldn't manage to carry (family photos and other personal effects). The front door was slightly open and I could hear the television. As I approached the door I could see there on the sofa were Choi and his new lover wrapped in each others arm watching the TV. They looked as though they'd been together for years. My heart sank as I looked over to the side of the sofa where several bags of clothing were sitting. The new guy had moved in.

A week later was the Easter long weekend. I decided I would confront Choi about what he'd done. So I went to the house. Oddly newspaper had been taped over all the windows and as I peered through the window through a split between the newspapers I saw the house was completely empty. Choi had moved. He'd timed it perfectly and to this day 4 years later I never heard from Choi again. It was like he died and I was left filling in the pieces of my life alone.

I tried to contact the gay people we knew mutually. I needed someone to talk to, someone to offer advise but none of them would speak to me. I did manage to speak to Terry some weeks later over the phone and he confessed a similar situation had occurred between him and Choi when their relationship ended but that was after only 4 years Choi and I had been together for 14 years. After that I never heard from anyone again despite my attempts to speak to them.

I was alone with no job and not even sure how I got to this point. For the first few weeks I lived on vegemite stirred into a glass of hot water. Partly because I had no money to buy groceries (you don't get unemployment cheques as soon as you apply for it) and partly because I was so desperately sad. I grew quite ill and  lost a considerable amount of weight.

I sat in that little run down shed I was renting wondering how the hell I got to this point in my life. It was the darkest and most loneliest point of my life...

(to be continued..)

Wednesday 18 December 2013

Part 9 - The Truth About Being Gay in Sydney Australia - His Name Was Hank

He announced "I'm going out.." and didn't come home 

until the afternoon of the following day.


It was Australia Day in 2009 as Choi waited for his taxi to take him to the airport. He was on his way to Singapore to spend Chinese New Year with his sisters in Jahor Baru. I remember it well because I was watching Gran Torino.

Choi and I had barely spoken to each other since our return from our Christmas holiday in Melbourne. It was an unusual holiday as Choi for the first time had barely spoken to me, instead he spent a lot of time in the bathroom with his phone or going for a walk alone and returning hours later. I knew there was something happening and I began to suspect he was seeing someone else.

The taxi arrived and Choi headed off. As I mentioned, in the last couple of years of our 14 year relationship Choi would spend Chinese New Year with his family alone and I would stay home. He would call me everyday to chat and laugh, but this trip I didn't hear from him at all. I wasn't sure what I'd do because I'd been unemployed for the past couple of years. So I began to make plans and started applying frantically for any job I could find in preparation of Choi's return.

When Choi returned home two weeks later our relationship seemed strained. He would work back late much longer than before until eventually when I spoke to him about anything he'd look right through me and not respond. It was as though suddenly to Choi I didn't exist. It was very painful.

Then one day as I was looking for my old resume I came across the flight information (boarding pass, copies of flight tickets) which Choi had stapled together and placed in the drawer from his recent trip to his parent's home. To my horror there wasn't one, but two and the other was an Asian name, a "Mr". I felt sick upon the realisation that Choi had taken, who I now discovered, his lover with him for Chinese New Year in Malaysia and Singapore.

What would I do? My mind was spinning and I knew I had to act quickly to get my own personal life in order as I'd put it on hold for so many years to help nurture Choi's career.

The following day as Choi showered a message suddenly appeared on his iPhone which was on the table where I was sitting. The message said "... I'm making noodles do you miss me hugz.." I couldn't take the lies any more so I snatched up the phone and waving it in Choi's face demanded to know who this message was from. His response. "it's probably a wrong number, you're just being neurotic"

For the next 3 months those last four words was his standard response to me "you're just being neurotic" He said it so often I began to believe him, even when one Saturday afternoon he announced "I'm going out.." and he didn't come home until the afternoon of the following day.

(to be continued...)


Tuesday 17 December 2013

Part 8 - The Truth About Being Gay in Sydney Australia - Gay Asians and Racism

Racist people are always the first to declare racism the loudest


Sticky rice, potato, rice queen, banana, all terms invented by gay asians yet for some reason they're always the first to scream racist amongst the rest of the gay population.

Take a look at this video below featuring Jimmy Chen on the Tyra Banks Show...



Notice how it's Jimmy, with a rye smile and defiant stare down the barrel of the camera lens, who immediately rattles off all those labels I've mentioned above.

It wasn't until I got to know gay asian men that I ever heard these terms used and to this day it's only ever gay asian men who I hear use them.

This idea of asian men supposedly hating themselves because they grew up in a predominantly Caucasian community is a self imposed ideal. Head on over to the Midnight Shift or any other gay bar and see who congregates together in a closed group separating the rest of the patrons by identifying themselves as somehow different to everyone else. I can tell you it's not the black or white gay people.

In this the 21st Century where the world is getting smaller and gay people are struggling to be identified as people who deserve the same rights and privileges as EVERY one else, gay asian men still sort to draw attention to themselves as separate to all those people and seemingly more deserving of attention than all other gay men. To this I say "get over it" and join a common course instead of beating a path to your own agenda.

It's those with racist issues themselves who cry racist the loudest.

Monday 16 December 2013

Part 7 - The Truth About Being Gay in Sydney Australia

The hardest part about being gay in Sydney is fitting in with the so-called "gay community". I say that because to me 'community' represents a group of people with something in common who share a common bond and therefore a gay community would be just that, however that isn't quite so accurate because unless you fit into the stereotypical mould created by gay people in Sydney you're not made very welcome there.

I'm not into the hypnotic doof doof beat of house music, I don't do party drugs and I certainly don't want to go to a gay bar to pick up or cruise the dance floor. I soon became bored with the predictable music and just as predictable sweaty, torsos flinging themselves wildly about the dance floor as they look about the bar with drugged glazed eyes to see who is watching them gyrating suggestively.

Choi always craved the ubiquitous gay bars and most certainly the Midnight Shift (a favourite amongst asian gay men) Frankly I prefer to put my glass down onto a table where it doesn't stick, like your jeans do when you sit on one of their chairs or your shoes do as you walk through the semen stained men's room.

I encouraged parties at our home and soon enough Choi's friends began doing the same and we enjoyed going to many of them. However one particular friend of Choi's, Terry the amateur photographer and a member of the Refugee Review Tribunal who has a fetish for anything asian including younger men, was always a chore.

Terry would give birthday parties for his much younger asian lover (the one who eventually left him after gaining his Australian citizenship for someone closer to his own age), parties for his photographs and parties for anything else that called for boasting eg: a sofa he bought while travelling through Japan, his pedigree oriental kittens, his discovery of a more expensive toilet paper... okay maybe I'm exaggerating about the sofa. Choi would turn up his eyes whenever the invitation would arrive declaring that we'd been invited to another of Terry's parties with his rent a crowd friends.

Sure enough on arrival to Terry's house decked out in oriental furniture, asian paintings, oriental vases, lamps, oriental cushions and Terry surrounded by the same crowd of considerably younger asian men all giggling like school girls and arching their eyebrows as I entered the house (my Mother use to say Terry seemed to her more of a paedophile than an older gay man) Terry would greet us with a hug and a kiss to Choi and a dismissive wave of the hand to me.

As Terry squirreled Choi away to the bowels of his home to meet "who ever" I'd be left to the mercy of the throng of giggling asian men glaring at me yet not wanting to speak to me. Eventually I learnt to pluck up the courage to speak to people, but soon discovered that talking to a gay guy, especially if he's young and asian, is considered you are trying to pick him up rather than just being polite or friendly. Believe me I'm a one man show and for as long as I was in a relationship I had no interest in picking anyone up.

Terry on the other hand would delight in reminiscing with Choi about the "good times" they had when they were a couple. They'd talk about their travels together or Terry would remind Choi of someone they once met. I was never included in conversation and I felt like I did trapped at his mother's house in Malaysia with no where to go and not understanding the lingo.

Yes Terry was a constant fly in my ointment, but one I had to bear because he was Choi's friend and they had a "special kind of friendship" which according to Choi no-one would come betweeen.

After Choi had thrown me out Terry would confess to me (in our only conversation which was over the phone) that Choi had pulled the same stunt with him. Choi had found someone else and was planning how he would step out of the relationship when Terry overheard his phone conversation with his newer lover. Terry said he needed years of professional counselling to get over the trauma of what had happened even though they'd only been living together for 4 years. As far as I know Terry is having the same professional counselling now to deal with the trauma of his young lover leaving him almost 5 years ago. He's a delicate flower apparently.

(to be continued...)





Friday 13 December 2013

Part 6 - The Truth About Being Gay in Sydney Australia

Try to understand gay people have less rights and are the most discriminated in Australia.

When my partner of 14 years threw me out having met a younger guy 20 years his junior I was left with nothing apart from the clothes on my back. He kept everything. There was not much I could do because unless I could afford a lengthy court hearing for which I would have to pay for a lawyer there are no laws in place that recognise my rights as a gay human being. Yes I know some people believe there is the "de-facto loophole" which basically states a couple who have lived together after a certain period of time are recognised as a partnership, but having tried putting that into practice I was up against a bigoted system for which I was at the mercy of people who didn't approve of gay relationships.

After the first 3 years we were living together I left my full time job to become a professional makeup artist, and I was quite successful too earning in two days what the average person at that time would earn in a fortnight. It all went fine for many years until (because it's an unregulated industry in Australia) every cosmetic consultant, avon lady and anyone else who cared to "give it a try" calls themselves a makeup artist, the value of a makeup artist dropped dramatically and I found myself being expected to work for free or at best for around $9 an hour. This didn't phase Choi who encouraged me to throw the business in as it was no longer profitable. So I searched for work and all I could get was retail, long thankless hours standing on my feet for up to 9 hours a day at minimum wages. Eventually Choi told me to stop working in that industry as he considered me to be better than that and besides at this stage he was earning $100K a year and according to him I didn't need to work.

Yes Choi was doing fine. I encouraged him to pursue his Masters degree. I cooked, cleaned and kept the house quiet while he studied. I drove him to Uni and would pick him up afterwards. I became a regular housewife much to my dismay.

I did everything for Choi. When he went through a confrontation at work I coached him on what he needed to say and how to avoid the consequences of an action he claimed were trumped up charges (He told me it was a computer problem he'd been having but later I was to discover the incident actually involved him being caught on a security camera in his office having sex with some guy).

I trusted him implicitly all the years we were together. In those final years when he'd work back late until around 11pm I believed his excuses when I asked why I could never reach him at his office after 6pm.

When he told me about his mother's Will I believed that too.

(to be continued...) 


Monday 9 December 2013

Part 5 - The Truth About Being Gay in Sydney Australia

Another Sister Another Rip Off


Not long after Choi's mother died one of his sisters decided she was going to move to Sydney with her teenage son for a couple of years. Oh the dread I felt as this particular sister was quite the antagonist in our relationship.

The reason for her decision was because her son had just turned 16 and would be conscripted into the Singapore army which was compulsory for all boys at that age. She wanted to avoid this happening and so made her plans accordingly. Many years prior she lived in Melbourne with her now estranged husband and so had Australian residency.

This particular sister had several names. She lived comfortably in a relatively new apartment building in Singapore complete with spa, pool, gym and so forth which she received in her divorce settlement from her husband. That settlement also included a sizeable alimony equivalent to a regular working salary, the entire contents of the home and the car (although she didn't know how to drive).

On her list of demands was for Choi to find her a suitable rental apartment to live and he also had to pay for all the furniture as well. Don't forget a year earlier Choi had sold his apartment and handed over the proceeds to all his sisters not retaining a single dollar for himself as per the instructions in his mother's will. In addition each sister received $10,000 from the mother when she died. Choi of course received nothing.

The furniture had to be new (all paid for by Choi) not second hand and she'd sent him a list of all the items she expected including linen, kitchenware, television and all the furniture for each room. She made it perfectly clear that he had to do this as he is the brother and in accordance to Chinese tradition it is the brother's responsibility to do these things. He also had to arrange the lease, signed in his name and he would pay for half the rent during her stay.

You can imagine I was seething about all this, but after all these years had learnt to keep quiet as Choi's family always got first preference over me and I didn't want to create a rift between him and I over the greed of one of his sisters.

His sister arrived and this time she had yet another name she expected to be referred to as (I later found out she also had two passports). Choi had arranged a job for her at the local hair salon which was owned by Chinese and she duly took up the role, but unknown to me she had also been to Centrelink with Choi to register for unemployment (ie: single parent's payment). The salon job paid her cash and the unemployment cheques were paid directly into a back account set up under her third name. She then found out through the school that her son was also eligible to receive government money as a student because he was in his senior years in high school. This money, Austudy, was paid to senior students to aid in their purchase of text books and so on, but if a student lives away from home they could receive Abstudy which was a higher government payment based on the fact that the student lived away from home and needed assistance to pay rent. Choi's sister immediately had her son register for Abstudy falsely stating that he lived at another address which Choi signed as a witness to.

For the entire two years Choi's sister lived in Marrickville with her son Choi and I were hardly alone. She was with him every day making demands. He had to take her shopping (even though the local supermarket was a 10 minute walk from her apartment), he had to take her to Yum Cha every weekend, he had to "sign papers". What ever she wanted she would phone (oh and Choi paid for that too) and he would jump.

As I mentioned already all his sisters spoke perfect english, but of course she avoided this as much as she could accept to tell me what a terrible country Australia is, how dirty Sydney is, how racist Australia is, how bad the food is or any other negative opinion she could invent (all the while she and her son were ripping off the Australian tax payer).

By the end of the two years when she had decided she could return to Singapore without her son being conscripted into the army (which of course he was anyway) my relationship with Choi was strained. When she did leave she arranged for everything in the apartment to be sold through a second hand dealer, banked the money into a Singapore bank account and left, but not before instructing Choi that the 4 weeks bond he'd paid for the apartment had also to be placed into her bank account, which he did.

(coming up - my mother invites Choi's sister to the family bar-b-que)








Friday 6 December 2013

Part 4 - The Truth About Being Gay in Sydney Australia

Choi Looses More Than Just His Mother


Ching's mother operated a small foreign exchange business from the lobby of a cockroach infested hotel in the centre of Johor Baru. At the end of every day she'd gleefully count up the cash and take it home to be locked in the safe buried deep in the confines of a small caged room. Several weeks later that day's takings would be carefully counted and methodically distributed with parts of it banked through various financial institutions, parts of it used as further cash for the business and the remaining distributed through the hotel's float. It was an unusual way of doing business.

For all the years Choi and I had been together he sent her close to $1000 a month. He told me it was pay back for everything his mother had done for him as a child (which seemed somehow ironic to me). She and her husband lived in a large 2 storey, 4 bedroom house in a newly gated community in Johor Baru which unfortunately still wasn't immune from daylight robberies.

It was about 10 years into our relationship that Choi's mother suddenly passed away. She had a haemorrhaging stomach ulcer and within days swiftly bled to death in her hospital bed (later Choi would tell me you never get sick in Malaysia because once you go to hospital you never come out alive). His sisters never told him about it as it occurred, it was a phone call from one of his high school buddies that alerted us, however by the time we were able to get any kind of information through a series of a dozen or more telephone calls to the hospital at which she was staying she'd passed away.

Of course I immediately arranged the flight for us to go to Johor Baru and we arrived the day she lay in state in her coffin under the carport in the front yard. Quickly one of his sisters ran towards us as we alighted from the taxi and rather than hug Choi to console him approached me directly with the instructions that I was not to sit near Choi, speak to Choi or acknowledge his family. If anyone asked me I was just a friend who came to keep him company on the plane. The process of Choi's mother laying in state continued for 5 days until her cremation. During this time many people came and left whilst all the time I wasn't even allowed to console my partner of 10 years.

Soon after the funeral the Will was read. Of course I wasn't made privy to any information until we were on the plane headed back to Sydney where Choi finally revealed the contents of the will.

Choi's mother had stated in her Will that a certain amount of cash was to be given to each sister, the house and it's contents would naturally remain with his father. Then the big shocker. Choi's mother had also stated that Choi must sell his apartment in Surry Hills and all proceeds of the sale be evenly distributed to each sister and Choi was to retain none of the money for himself. I was shocked and soon after so were all his friends when he told them.

Now keep in mind Choi's mother had no financial investment in the Surry Hills apartment. Her name did not appear anywhere on the bank loan, the property title or any other legal document related to the apartment. In fact both he and I had been paying off the bank loan during our 10 years together naturally enough even though we had never lived in it together we were still partners... a couple and that's what couples do. As far as Choi and his family were concerned I had no right to intervene on this ridiculous situation so I kept quiet.

Quite simply (and legally) it was not Choi's mother's apartment to sell, but pressured daily (and I mean every day since the funeral) by each of his sisters to sell as they were waiting for the money Choi sold the apartment within weeks.

Each of his four sisters did own their own homes at this time. Two had procured their homes through divorce and two were married with husbands. It blew my mind why they expected Choi to sell his home for their benefit. They didn't care that he would be left without his own home, all they were concerned about was the money they were to receive from it's subsequent sale. Clearly the apartment had sold for just over twice the value it was when he'd bought it 12 years earlier, but he did not retain a single dollar of it. His sisters demanded to see the actual bill of sale so they could be sure he was not short changing them when he handed over the money.

(next - Another Sister Another Ripoff)


Wednesday 4 December 2013

Part 3 - The Truth About Being Gay in Sydney Australia

Meeting The Parents

I met Choi's mother within in the first few months of us dating one another. She flew over from Malaysia to stay at his apartment in Surry Hills for a couple of weeks. I recall Choi was very tense about his mother's arrival and wanted to make sure that all the foods she liked was stocked aplenty in his home.

She arrived on a Saturday afternoon and Choi wanted me to be there. I must admit I was apprehensive because for the weeks leading up to her arrival Choi had been a bundle of nerves. He asked me to wait at his apartment as he caught a cab to the airport to collect her.

Then the moment of her arrival. Choi threw open the door announcing the arrival of his mother and introduced her to me as "this is my mother" (and for the rest of the 14 years we were together I only ever knew her as that, Choi's mother).  In marched a stocky dark woman dressed in a light, button down cotton frock covered in faded blue flowers with the hem falling away in places. I recall her face with the moles and brown spots scattered all over. Immediately she glared at me as I walked forward to welcome her, my hand extended. She ignored my gesture and, without even a glance in my direction, spoke harshly to Choi in Chinese. Then immediately began to march around the apartment flicking the light switches on and off, running the taps and opening and closing cupboard doors (the way one would do if they were inspecting a home they were considering for rent or purchase).

For those entire two weeks Choi's mother was in Australia she never spoke a word of English so I assumed naturally that she couldn't. A year later I was to discover she spoke English just as good as I and understood it perfectly when on a our first annual visit to Malaysia she referred to me in Chinese as "gweilo" When I turned to Choi and asked him what did that mean his mother responded loudly as if announcing it to the entire room and in perfect English "it means foreign devil! That's what you are a foreign devil!" and proceeded to laugh as she repeated the word gweilo over and over. Needless to say this didn't endear me to Choi's mother at all and our relationship remained strained for ever after.

It was at this first visit to Malaysia I met Choi's father for the first time. He was a quiet old man with a smiling face. During our visits to the parents' home in Johor Baru his sisters and old school friends would come over. They would all sit around the dining room speaking in Chinese, eating and laughing and never once paid me any notice. It was as though I wasn't even there. I couldn't go out for a walk because the house was always locked shut with large steel gates over the entrance doors and windows (according to Choi the neighbourhood was quite dangerous and so this was a safety measure). We'd only ever stay a week before moving onto to Hong Kong or Thailand or some other destination (apparently it was my reward for persevering a week with his family even though I paid for the trip).

I remember one day during our second visit as I sat on the brown vinyl sofa staring at the Chinese calendar sticky taped to the beige painted wall while Choi, his sisters and mother sat at the dining table talking in Chinese to one another, Choi's father appeared from his own room and as he limped across the room towards the television he smiled at me, then switching on the television he searched for a channel that had some form of english on it, smiled and returned to his room again.

I dreaded going to Malaysia each year for new year, but it was something I actually insisted on because Choi's family would make no attempt to contact him (even on his birthdays) and I wanted him to always have some type of family relationship. Many times he would tell me to "let's skip it this year" but I would insist and duly purchase the tickets for us to go there. It took me 11 years before finally I had enough and would send him to Malaysia on his own each year.

I guess at this point you're wondering why on earth I would stay in a relationship surrounded by such family and friends? To be perfectly blunt because I loved him. In the early years he was very kind to me. He would often compliment me on my appearance, my cooking or my approach to day to day life. We would talk often about what we'd do together when we retired and where we would eventually buy a home together. I believed our relationship was to be forever.

Choi would tell me stories of his childhood and I felt sorry for him. He said they lived in a very small apartment in Johor Baru when he was growing up and whilst his sisters slept on individual beds he slept on a foam mattress on the floor. He told me how his mother bought 2 white shirts his first year he started high school that were very large in size so he would grow into them as he had to wear those shirts for the rest of his years at high school while his sisters all got new uniforms every year. Accordingly his sisters always went on school excursions, but Choi was never allowed.

Choi would tell me about the relationship he had before he met me was a violent one and the one prior to that with Terry was fraught with Terry's promiscuity. I pitied him and wanted to make him feel loved... and I did, I really did.

(next - Choi Looses More Than Just His Mother)

Tuesday 3 December 2013

Part 2 - The Truth About Being Gay in Sydney Australia

Are These People Typically Gay?

I was born in Queensland and spent my childhood growing up in the suburbs of Brisbane before moving to Sydney. I had the usual life like any other Australian kid.

When I'd met Choi I was living in the suburbs of Fairfield south west of Sydney. Like I mentioned in my previous blog post I had a good job, renting a town house, nice furniture (my family use to call it the doll's house from House & Garden magazine lol). I had a car and I lived the usual lifestyle of any other suburban person. I was content.

It was at this point that I'd befriended an Argentinean guy who also lived near Fairfield. Fairfield was the kind of suburb (and still is) where you could have a coffee at the local café and people would sometimes just chat to one another. It's a good atmosphere. Anyway this guy (who I'll refer to as "Tony") turned out to be gay and over the course of our friendship (yes we were just friends nothing more) he convinced me to go to Oxford St and the Albury Hotel and that's how I came to meet Choi.

We dated for a year before Ching Sim asked me to move in with him. It was an interesting year to say the least. I got to meet his friends who were all Chinese except for the occasional Australian who was partnered with one of Choi's friends.

* Jon - in his mid 20's was from Singapore and worked as a flight attendant. Actually at this point he'd just completed his trainee-ship. He lived with Al (a 50 something year old) who owned his house in Newtown. Jon was also dating another guy slightly older than Al (I'll refer to him as Charles) who owned a house in Leichhardt and had been diagnosed with HIV. Al didn't know about Charles of course, but Jon was working on a plan to convince Charles to allow him to move into his house. As Jon had told us repeatedly he was working on Charles to get him to write everything he owned in his will to Jon.

Jon didn't particularly like me because I was not a "glamorous queen" as he liked to refer to himself. He felt that because I was only renting a house in the suburbs I wasn't up to his standard. I eventually had to remind him that he actually didn't own anything apart from the wayward hearts of two lonely old men.

* Henry - Chinese in his 30's studying IT at the University of Canberra. He lived with his lover (a very nice guy) in Canberra but would drive to Sydney every Friday night to stay the weekend with his other lover in Surry Hills and to visit night clubs. He was a polite person, friendly but very much narcissistic. He couldn't pass a reflective surface without stopping and looking at himself (for a very long time). He slept around but never told his Canberra lover. He mentioned on several occasions that guy was a matter of convenience until he'd finished studying. Once he gained his degree he moved back to China to work for his brother's business.

* Terry - an Australian guy who was a little older than Choi. He's a member of the Refugee Review Tribunal. His lover was also from Singapore and about 16 years his junior. Years later when his lover had gained Australian citizenship he revealed to Terry that he'd been having an affair with a guy closer to his own age and left. Terry was (and still is) an amateur photographer, mostly taking pictures of semi naked Asian men he meets in bath houses and bordellos along his regular journeys through Asian countries. He exhibits these photos each year in a small local gallery where every year a consistent group of the same friends attend to view them and pretend to adore them as they gleefully stick coloured dots on the ones they pretend to want to purchase.

Terry was the ex-lover of Choi (I soon found out later). They'd been together for several years before Choi had  an affair and left Terry for a younger man (from whom Choi had left a year before meeting me). They eventually decided to remain friends. Over the 14 years we'd been together we attended many parties at Terry's home (always filled with young Asian men some still waiting for their Visas or Citizenship) but he was always rude to me, avoided any conversation and would often refer to me as a westie (a derogatory term for someone who lived west of the city). I always told myself it didn't matter how Terry felt about me because I had Choi not him.

Choi and, reluctantly, I would remain friends with Terry throughout our relationship. Terry was to play a small role in the breakdown of our relationship years later through the introduction of one of his friends (an extremely narcissistic Asian associate of his).

There were of course other friends Choi had, none of whom made any effort to get to know me. I was that westie who didn't belong in the inner sanctum of gay city life. I didn't dress like them, I wasn't interested in dance music and I didn't approve of the Mardis Gras parade (which I still believe gives a false impression of what being gay is all about).

I just didn't fit in with the Sydney gay scene and years later I stopped trying.

(next - meeting the parents)

Monday 2 December 2013

Part 1 - The Truth About Being Gay in Sydney Australia

This blog is an honest account of my life as a gay person living in Sydney and what it is truly like in Australia as a gay person living in a multicultural relationship. I will reveal illegal activities of a family and the inadequacies of a so-called "gay action group" funded by the government which has become the self-proclaimed unofficial governing body of the Australian gay population yet is operated more like a gay mafia.

This is not my bitter pill hard to swallow. It is an honest and truthful revelation where having come to a junction in my life I've decided to share a real gay story, the kind a certain gay action group would prefer mainstream Australia doesn't know about.

I've changed the names of the people in this blog mainly to protect the innocent and reluctantly to protect the guilty.

If anyone reading this blog associates him or herself to any of the people I write about that is your cross to bear and may simply be coincidental.... or not. This blog is not written with the intent to offend, but more so to share an experience which I believe to be far too common in Sydney yet is over shadowed by the small band of constantly out spoken and self gratifying gay activists who may not necessarily represent the true quality of the average gay Australian.

My story is real and no doubt one of many, but I can only express mine and let those too afraid to speak out frankly for the fear of the backlash of the so-called "gay community" and it's powerful and very influential action group maybe read this blog and perhaps gain strength to be honest as well.


In 1994 I met a guy at the Albury Hotel which was Sydney's most popular gay bar. This was back during the time when there actually was a sense of community amongst gay people, but that's another blog post.

I'll refer to him as "Choi" a naturalised Australian from Johor Baru in Malaysia 6 years my senior (he was 34 at the time). We dated for a year before deciding to move in with each other.

However we weren't allowed to move into the apartment he owned in Surry Hills because his mother, who lived in Malaysia and had no financial investment in the apartment, had told him he couldn't. I thought this was odd, but respecting what I then thought was a cultural thing. We moved into a flat in Dulwich Hill instead.

We spent 14 years together. Most people we knew had assumed we were the couple that was going to be together for ever, but of course that was never to be. Partly because of his infidelities and mostly because of the constant interference from his sisters.

I have so much to write about in this blog concerning the illegal activities of the family who bent the law to suit their needs and worked hard to break down our relationship and I want so much to express the real nature of a gay relationship in Australia which underpins what really happens within the confines of the so-called "gay community" and it's unofficial governing body.

I'm not sure where to begin exactly so I will start with briefly outlining the story of a relationship that didn't simply breakdown, but was systematically destroyed by a family who's interests were based on their own material gain.

When Choi and I had moved in together I had a successful job, was renting a small house, owned all my own furniture and a car. My life was like any other person's living in Australia. By the time he threw me out 14 years later for a young asian boy 20 years his junior I was left with literally nothing apart from the clothes on my back and desperate to find a job.

He was never faithful. Within the first few months of us living together I watched in disbelief as he walked into the entrance of Signal (a gay cruising place on Riley St where people pay an entrance fee to engage in anonymous sex). I told him back then what I saw and he swore to never do it again. I trusted him.

His sisters were another story.

One sister was completing her Law Degree at Sydney University. She was married with two children. Her husband was relatively successful and they owned a modest apartment in Ultimo which a few years later they sold and upgraded to a more lavish one on Pitt St in Sydney.

This sister was doing her degree under the HECS scheme which back then was a government assisted payment scheme to pay your university fees. Students could defer payment of their university fees until such time when they had completed their degree and were working full time, then earning a certain annual salary at which time they would pay a percentage of what they owed during their income tax claim each financial year.

However she never paid the HECS. Once she had completed her degree she set up a law business in Johor Baru and her and her family returned to Malaysia. Law Degree under her arm and the Australian tax payer footing the bill.

Several years later she sent her eldest son back to Sydney to do the same thing, this time with a degree in economics. Two university educations thanks to the Australian Tax payer.

The sisters were never kind to me. Although they speak English as well as anyone whenever they were with us they spoke in Chinese. Often when we visited Choi was offered a meal while I remained obligated to sitting quietly perhaps with a glass of juice. Why did I put up with this you ask? Well I loved him and to me I considered I wasn't dating his sisters so to tolerate their bad behaviour was testimony to him just how much I cared for him.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

In my next blog post I'll share the reaction of Choi's inner city gay friends to me. A guy from the outer suburbs who had never met a gay person before and had never been to Oxford St.

(next - are these people typically gay?)