Shanghai's gay men are ga-ga over murses
Any gay expat in China will tell you that their gaydar goes haywire once they enter this country. Chinese guys will compliment you frequently, they will take you out to dinner and pay for it no less! All that stuff is nice until they utter those dreaded words, "I have a wife and a baby!" Talk about a buzz kill. So, the question is how can we tell who is gay in this big city? As an insider, I'll let you in on a little secret.

The "murse," as some in the community have called it, is a prominent and unavoidable feature of the gay scene here, and if the gay community had a mascot, it would be a giant, walking, talking Coach bag. Now that summer is just around the corner, expect a whole lot of shiny, new large bags to be coming to a gay man near you.

Truth be told, the murse is not a regular handbag that any respectable woman would carry. It's much more than that... literally. Every gay man knows that the larger the bag, the better. The shinier and more decorated the bag, the better. Naturally, brand names are the best and garner the most admiration. While I don't ascribe to this philosophy, it is an epidemic within the community. Amazingly, it gets worse. The Shanghai gays will clutch the bag like it's a baby, holding it tight until forced to part with it. Actually, if you think about it, the murse is like a baby; it's big, loud, and gets a lot of attention from women. In fact, for some Shanghai gay men, their bag IS their baby.

At any entrance of a gay club in Shanghai (all one of them), there's a small room with a windowless counter. In a straight club, perhaps club-goers would check coats, sweaters or any other assorted items. At a gay club, it's like checking luggage. The Pudong airport baggage claim has got nothing on PinkHome's "coatroom." As a gay man that rejects this practice, I can't help but wonder, what's in those bags anyway? Does any man actually need to carry that many things to warrant a purse? Is the wallet not good enough anymore?

A friend once told me that his boyfriend carried a white, shiny murse. Listening with increasing shock and horror, I asked, "What was inside?" He replied, "His wallet, his cell phone, and a towel--to make it look bigger."

Pete