{"id":414,"date":"2006-11-04T02:51:22","date_gmt":"2006-11-04T07:51:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=414"},"modified":"2018-08-19T21:02:07","modified_gmt":"2018-08-20T01:02:07","slug":"14835-%c2%a0%c2%a0-kenneth-hsien-yung-pai-bai-xiany%c7%92ng-crystal-boys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=414","title":{"rendered":"14835.&nbsp;(Kenneth Hsien-yung Pai [B\u00e1i Xi\u0101ny\u01d2ng] ) Crystal Boys"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- \t\t@page { margin: 2cm } \t\tP { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } --><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Bai Xiany\u00adong is said to be the best styl\u00adist among today\u2019s Tai\u00adwanese writ\u00aders, and among the best writ\u00ading in Chi\u00adnese today. This is not some\u00adthing I\u2019m in a posi\u00adtion to judge. This nov\u00adel trans\u00adlates well, part\u00adly because the sub\u00adject mat\u00adter, the sub\u00adcul\u00adture of gay hus\u00adtlers in Taipei, is eas\u00adily com\u00adpared to sim\u00adi\u00adlar set\u00adtings in Europe or North Amer\u00adica. Chi\u00adnese soci\u00adety, for most of the thou\u00adsands of years of its his\u00adtory, was not infect\u00aded by the bar\u00adbaric homo\u00adpho\u00adbia that obsessed Chris\u00adt\u00adian Europe. Unfor\u00adtu\u00adnately, Euro\u00adpean cul\u00adtural norms, and of course the vicious gay-hatred of Com\u00admu\u00adnism on the main\u00adland, have had their influ\u00adence, and today the gay sub\u00adcul\u00adture of Tai\u00adwan occu\u00adpies much the same social posi\u00adtion that it does in Amer\u00adica. Bai\u2019s hus\u00adtler char\u00adac\u00adters could as eas\u00adily be found in Toronto\u2019s Church and Welles\u00adley vil\u00adlage, or in West Hol\u00adly\u00adwood. The per\u00adfume of Chi\u00adnese imagery, of jade and plum blos\u00adsoms and so on, makes it seem a bit dif\u00adfer\u00adent. So do the numer\u00adous ref\u00ader\u00adences to con\u00adtem\u00adpo\u00adrary Chi\u00adnese pop cul\u00adture. Is it a good nov\u00adel? Yes. The char\u00adac\u00adters seem real, and you care about what hap\u00adpens to them. I rec\u00adom\u00admend&nbsp;it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: x-small;\"><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bai Xiany\u00adong is said to be the best styl\u00adist among today\u2019s Tai\u00adwanese writ\u00aders, and among the best writ\u00ading in Chi\u00adnese today. This is not some\u00adthing I\u2019m in a posi\u00adtion to judge. This nov\u00adel trans\u00adlates well, part\u00adly because the sub\u00adject matter,&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=414\">Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[946,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-reading","category-bu-reading-2006"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=414"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9324,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions\/9324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}