Western Queers in China Flight to the Land of Oz

This is a heartfelt tour of sinology's gay male closet, the door for some of the scholars and 'aesthetes' who journeyed from the West to China locked more tightly than for others. By consulting archives and attempting personal contact with surviving family and friends (not all of whom agreed to talk), historian Mungello tells the 'story of how twenty-three different men with same-sex desire fled to China and influenced history.' ... Throughout, Mungello asks a familiar question-What links a (Western, male) homosexual orientation with a passion for Asia?-but from a newer perspective: China hands in the Age of Imperialism. His book is informed, entertaining, and melancholy in equal measure. The heart may be unfathomable, but Mungello has proven it is there. -- John Whittier Treat Journal of Asian Studies This is a fascinating read for anyone involved with China. David Mungello's novel focus on sexual orientation and Sinology illuminates the individuality of these cultural pioneers to striking effect. -- T. H. Barrett, University of London This is a fascinating journey into the lives of a number of Western men who, especially at the turn of last century, felt irresistibly attracted to China, traveled there, and sometimes made it their home. Aesthetes and art collectors, pharmacists, poets and opera fans, eccentric Sinologists-what drew these men to China? Many of them, David Mungello suggests, shared a most private and powerful secret-their homosexuality. Much has been written about orientalists as complicit agents of the colonial enterprise. Mungello's book offers a corrective, showing that at least some of them might have been sexual refugees more than anything else. -- Giovanni Vitiello, University of Hawai'i at Manoa