Brokeback Mountain

Towards the end of having lunch with a friend we discussed what to do next and decided on a movie at what has become our regular DVD Bang nearby. My wife wanted to watch Brokeback Mountain and, having spent several years in the UK - which seems to have launched her on a mission to broaden other Koreans' horizons, asked said friend whether she wanted to see a 'love story'. I expressed my thought - in the privacy of English - that this was a mistake but my wife was determined, so I fought to keep a straight face as certain details were revealed while the biggest detail of all remained in the closet. I think our friend was really looking forward to seeing a romantic film so all I could think of as we walked towards the DVD Bang was 'this is going to be interesting'.

There are an absence of women from the early part of the movie, which I thought may give the game away, but the reality only dawned on our friend just before all was revealed. I heard some rushed, surprised and I dare say shocked comments emanating from her mouth - it's funny how in times of stress language barriers seem to fade and somehow you just know exactly what the other person is thinking. I don't think she was terribly impressed by my wife's deception.

Our friend took a couple of phonecalls as the movie progressed, which she left the room to take, and I couldn't help but think that had things been different she would have called back later. As it was, she made her excuses and left before the end anyway, leaving me alone with my wife, who I hope understood by my look that she'd finally crossed the line with her friend.

I don't really understand Korea enough to know to what extent homosexuality is tolerated here, but I get the impression that it just isn't - at best there's a society-wide don't-ask-don't-tell policy in operation. That's not to say that everyone is visibly straight here because they aren't. I'd love to relate the difficult tale of a Korean living here who is one of the most camp men I've met anywhere - and I come from a pretty liberal background - but such is his rarity any details would run the risk of outing him if any Koreans ever read this. Aside from the important principle of not outing people whatever the circumstances, you might wonder how someone so apparently camp could be outed anyway, because in the West nearly everyone would just know, but in Korea they don't, because people don't think about these things so much, and that's what you have to get your head around.

As it is, I've met a few other people leading 'normal' lifestyles here who have caused raised eyebrows on my part, but in a country where they forgot to call time on the New Romantic Period, it's not always easy to tell where the line between fashion victims and camp-clothing. For example, 'man-bags' are very much 'in' in Korea, even if they are in many cases almost identical to the handbags women carry. Even so, one gets the impression that life here for homosexual people may be very similar to the kind of experiences people in the West had fifty or sixty years ago. This said, one is also left wondering to what extent these people realise that had they been born in the West, they might have chosen a completely different lifestyle.

And as for our somewhat shocked friend, we met her again later and she explained that while she was surprised, she wasn't in any way offended or disapproving of what she saw. But I'm not so sure.