龙阳癖

Lóng Yáng pǐ

Literally “the passion of Long Yang” and a euphemism for homosexuality. Lord Long Yang was a gay nobleman mentioned in the eighteenth-century classic Dream of the Red Chamber. According to the tale, which takes place during China’s warring states period (from sometime during the fifth century BC to 221 BC), Lord Long Yang was fishing with his lover, the ruler of Wei, and suddenly burst into tears. The king asked what was wrong, upon which Long Yang said that catching bigger fish made him want to throw back the smaller ones, which surely meant that, with so many beauties in the world, some day the ruler would discard him in favor of a greater beauty. Romantically, the ruler of Wei then made a public decree that “Anyone who dares to speak of other beauties will be executed along with his entire family.” To this day, Lóng Yáng is sometimes used to refer to a young, pretty boy in a gay relationship, and it is also the name for an international gay Asian network called the Long Yang Club.