The vocabulary lesson you won't find in a dictionary

If you've ever learned a language before, you know that vocabulary is extremely important. And when it comes to the language of all things sexual, well then, it's even more important to know what to say and how to say it. For the LGBT community, our vocabulary is dear to our hearts and keeps us together like a family.

So what are we anyway? In Shanghai, the name for people like us is more complicated than it appears. While the term tongxinglian is often used in China to describe gay people in newspaper articles and other official publications, the term isn't so popular among Shanghai gay circles. It's a bit too technical, perhaps even too clinical of a term. The closest English translation to the term is more along the lines of "homosexual" in English.

A few years ago, academics adopted the more informal tongzhi, or "comrade," to refer to gay people (nutongzhi for lesbians). Quickly, it became Chinese slang for gay people. Since it's still a relatively popular term in mainstream Chinese society, the slang term gives new meaning to some of the class revolutionary propaganda and Chinese language textbooks. However, one usually doesn't hear tongxinglian or tongzhi in any of Shanghai's gay or gay-friendly locations. The word you'll hear most often when describing their sexual preference is "gay" (in English) for men, and lala for women.

At a bar, you might hear two comrades who are about to seal the deal ask, "One or zero?" More than speaking in binary code, what the inquirer really wants to know is which sexual position they prefer. Without going into much detail, a "one" is typically the more dominant member in bed and prefers to "give it" to the "zero." These terms, however, should not be confused with masculinity or femininity. After all, we have a term for a masculine "zero" who likes to take control, called a "power" zero, a rarity in Shanghai for sure.

Finally, if you are at a club and a cute, attractive man introduces himself as an "MB," you might be his next client. In big cities like Shanghai, these guys (sometimes teenage boys, yuck) are known as Money Boys or MB, for short. They are fairly common, friendly and bilingual, making them fast friends for visiting tourists. Some of them even make house calls and advertise online … or so I've heard.

-Pete