The year was 1968; an Asian War was raging, there was a Warsaw Student uprising, Simon and Garfunkel released "Bridge Over Troubled Water". Kubric's, "2001: A Space Odyssey" had everyone oohing and aahing, and 9 months previous to July 12th, my parents did the horizontal mamba and voila; I came into the world. The place; the small city of Guelph, with a population of about 55,000 at the time. The city is located about 60 miles (100 km for you metric folks) from Toronto; where I am today. My parents ran a family restaurant and I grew up working there most of the time. Guess what kind of restaurant?... Yup, it was an Arby's! Just kidding! Yes, it was a Canadian Chinese restaurant (Yes, I'm Chinese) serving the kind of Chinese food I detested. Chicken balls my foot! But hey, one can't complain! It helped support my brother and I as we ventured through the upper echelons of education!

Guelph was the proverbial WASPish city with a very small Asian population. Because of this, I wasn't able to practice my Chinese as much as I would have liked. So, today I have a terrible grasp of the language. However, I am able to order lunch and shop in Chinatown without many of the merchants saying "jucq-sing" (bamboo)! There was the usual red neck prejudice but my twitching has since dissipated. I am still waiting for the day when I will gain an appreciation for the small town of my birth. (If ever!)

I do not mean to disappoint all the drama queens but there was no mommy dearest, or absent father, or no older man taking advantage of me (darn). I grew up in a pretty ordinary dysfunctional household.

My entry into the gay world was no rockets, red glare occasion. The first indication that I was attracted to men occurred when I was in Grade 6. There I was a li'l 11 year old strolling home for lunch; it was a hot sunny day and I passed a construction worker with his shirt off; big beads of sweat were making his hard body glisten in the noon day sun. (Sorry for making it sound like a FALCON video excerpt.) As I passed him my head turned soaking him in with some sort of child-like admiration. I just stared and finally shook myself and headed home.

Nothing much happened during my adolescence, (Actually, absolutely NOTHING happened. Darn again!), and I didn't come out until my brother got involved...

I was 14 at the time and he was looking for a magazine in my bedroom when he accidentally found a copy of Playgirl magazine. At the time I thought he was okay with the fact that I was gay, and after years of being terrorised by me, the tables now turned. He had the upper hand! But thinking back on it now, he must have thought I was a weirdo or something because he gave me the silent treatment for 9 months! I snapped and blew a gasket after that and my parents wondered what the hell was happening to me. I sat them down and told them I liked men. In that wonderful Asian way they looked at each other and then they told me to just graduate and get a job! AAAUGGGGHHHH! I think they thought (or were hoping) it was a phase and that it would go away... now, 14 years later and still counting.... (A couple of years ago they tried to set me up with this girl I knew in high school. I guess they still want grandkids and are hoping the man who has been at my side for the past few years may turn into a child bearing woman. Go fig. )

High School was not the happiest time. I never got along with my classmates. I couldn't relate to them and my sexuality was making me feel more like an outsider looking in. I was sure I was the only queer in Guelph. And let's not forget the fact I was an Asian living in a predominantly white world. (Another story, another time.)

I left home at age 19 to go to university. I decided to go to the University of Toronto. I had to get out of Guelph. It was during this time that I had my first sexual experience. And contrary to what the gallery may lead you all to believe I was not a big stud muffin from day one. I did not have sex until I was 20. The first time I tried to kiss a guy, he had to stop me and say, "This is how you kiss." Yes I still die of embarrassment when thinking about that. My only sexual release through my first two years of university was my left hand. (A funny aside is, I had a subscription to JOCK magazine which was still being sent to my parents house. They knew what it was but still brought me all these black plastic bagged issues every time they came to visit. I guess they did not know how they were contradicting their master plan for my "straightening out".) The magazines were in cahoots with my left hand.

 (Insert wavy lines to indicate flashback. Hand motion in front of your monitor will do.)

My exposure to anything gay as a teenager was few and far between. My first encounter with anything remotely gay was on the TV sit-com called Soap. Besides being an absolutely hilarious show, it had a gay character played by Billy Crystal. This was something that raised my curiosity though couldn't relate to how he acted, and wondered if being gay meant being feminine. I never thought of myself as feminine though I was quiet and introverted. (No need to go into the relevance of me wearing my aunt's clogs or splashing on fingernail polish as a kid!) I scoured television and the local library to find anything that was gay. Often I could be found in the library skimming through the paperbacks looking for any snippet of gay themes. And believe it or not the Guelph library had a tiny gay section. (Stealthily I combed the shelves with my National Geographic as a clandestine book cover!) I even ransacked my father's adult video collection to see the guys in straight porno. Yes your father too probably has a porn collection. But man, are those straight guys UGLY!!

As for television, thank God for Steven Carrington. Yes, I was a Dynasty queen, Steven was a hunka hunka burning love. At last, a gay character I would dearly love to be with! Other than a few movies like Making Love and The Fourth Man, I was pretty much isolated.

My tragic love story as a child happens around a girl (a real girl) I had a crush on in grade 6. She was madly in love with Shaun Cassidy. So to get closer to her I began to like Shaun Cassidy. I use to buy Tiger Beat, Teen Beat, 16 Magazine and cut out the pictures of Shaun and keep them in a scrapbook. But alas she broke my heart but I kept my pictures of Shaun, (but today I think of myself as a Parker Stevenson kinda guy.)...Hmm, maybe that's where it all began.... ? :)

The funniest thing is, as I was growing up I was attracted to all the things that are an integral part of modern day, gay camp culture. Our family restaurant had a jukebox and the tunes I listened to at the time, (the 70's and early 80's) shaped the type of music I liked today. I grew up with disco (it was the music, I repeat, the music and not the clothes! The 70's, the decade fashioned skipped.) and pop and loved the tunes sung by Elton John, Donna Summer, Barbra Streisand, Sister Sledge, Peaches and Herb and any number of the disco performers at the time. I am the one you will hear squeal, "Oh I love this song." And begin my disco inferno across the kitchen floor. Shake your groove thing. Yeah yeah yeah! Must be the genes!

When I started my third year in University, I met my first boyfriend and thus began the adventure of learning about loving men.

Believe it or not, it was my younger straight brother who introduced him to me! In a gay bar even! I was 22 and my brother had planned to take me to a gay bar for the first time. But he decided to go earlier and check it out and was there the week before I was to go. He had met a guy named Max and told him of me. And so began my life of coming out in the community. Picture if you will...I'm in this gay bar and I'm not too sure what to expect...what probably flashed through my mind were the scenes in the Blue Oyster bar, from the movie, Police Academy. I imagined seeing a lot of leather guys and drag queens and I was surprised that many of the people looked like me. Mind you, I was never a social guy, so I didn't know what to expect in bars in general...

I have to tell you that my first relationship was a great learning experience (and also a stressful one as I soon found out)! and adventure. I was very lucky to have had met someone who was kind and understanding. You learn a lot about responsibility, respect, and patience. And let's not forget the idiosyncratic behaviour you notice about your partner, which you come to appreciate and love. (Keep Smiling Ray Keep Smiling.) As I met more people in the community and got involved with support groups like LGBYT (Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Youth of Toronto), I heard too many stories of disastrous first time experiences, and how being taken advantage of had hurt and scarred people for life. The biggest hurdle for many young people when beginning relationships is communicating or even knowing what it is they want. One guy wants a fling while another wants a meaningful relationship, but unfortunately this is not communicated until after things happen, and of course someone gets hurt and possibly a little jaded... ok, enough preaching! Just to clarify, I am single presently. (hint, hint)