Gay Chinese Couple
Same-sex couple Zhang Yi (R) and Hai Bei pose for their wedding photographs at Qianmen street on Valentine's Day in Beijing February 14, 2009. For a number of Beijing's gay and lesbian community, Valentine's Day is not just a day to celebrate loving relationships, but also an ideal time to campaign for same-sex marriages and the acceptance of homosexuality in China. Reuters

“When are you going to get married?” is the dreaded question that single Chinese don’t want to hear when they go home to their parents for the Lunar New Year celebration.

Among heterosexual males, because of the gender imbalance, there are fewer females than males, which makes finding a girlfriend more challenging. For gays and lesbians, it’s more a matter of first coming out to their family and then waiting for their acceptance of their choice.

Anticipating this annual dilemma of young adults and their parents, the Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) just released a video about coming out and coming home, with the Lunar New Year as the background.

The six-minute, 46-second video has become viral with over 108 million clicks on the website qq.com, according to the Wall Street Journal. In YouTube, where it was reposted, it has almost 400,000 views.

Titled “Coming Home – Celebrating Chinese New Year” or “Huijia” in Chinese, the professionally made poignant film is one which many gay Chinese could relate.

It showed the parents in denial after their only child comes out and admits he is gay. Then they told not to come home anymore for future Lunar New Year celebrations. However, after a few years, the parents relented and finally accepted their son and asked him to join them again for the 2015 Lunar New Year.

Hu Zhijun, cofounder of PLFAG in China, said he hopes that the video could help young Chinese gays deal with the issue as they go home for the biggest holiday in China.

Hu said that to produce the video, which costs US$1,600, the LGBT group received online donations. He said the aim of the video is to increase awareness among Chinese about homosexuality since it is still a common belief in the Asian giant that being gay is an ailment which needs treatment or “just a lifestyle that people can choose to change.”

To contact the writer, email: v.hernandez@ibtimes.com.au