"Do you think he is?”

“I’m sure he is. Look at the way he walks and his facial expressions.”

“I’m not sure he is. The ones who are always pretend they are not, but the ones who aren’t always pretend they are.”

This conversation is from the new underground gay magazine SHI, which has just been launched in Shanghai. It aims to give a loud-and-proud answer to the inevitable question: Shi bu shi? (Is he or isn’t he?).

It’s a moment to picture: a bunch of guys are sitting around. They spot a hot guy and everything freezes. Their eyes are glued to the new guy. Someone asks the inevitable question: Is he? But no one dares say the G word.

Simon Tang, editor-in-chief of the magazine and the Shanghai officer of the Hong Kong-based AIDS-prevention charity Chi Heng Foundation, explains why the Chi Heng-funded magazine is called SHI. The magazine is about proudly stating who you are, and not being afraid of the G word, he explains. He tells us that his mother once hung up the phone on him because he said the word “homosexual.”

Is being gay an integral part of someone’s identity or merely a “hobby,” as a few Shanghai drag queens told the columnist a few weeks ago? Tang says the magazine is there to deliver a message that being gay is not just an attitude. He wants SHI to describe Chinese gay life, and give a voice to the minority.

The first issue has news stories concerning homosexuality around the world, a feature on a gay cruising park in Guangzhou, the wedding of Eddy from Eddy’s Bar, domestic violence in same sex couples in Hong Kong, a new Chinese gay dating site and why half of the Asian-Americans in California voted for Proposition 8.

The magazine does not contain any photos of hot naked men, but it has articles that throw light on the complexity of Chinese gay culture.

On the back cover, there is Chi Heng’s hotline number, and under it is a picture of a good-looking guy and girl wearing headsets and beautiful smiles, welcoming their troubled comrades to give them a call. They certainly won’t hang up the phone on you.