My Life with my sexuality is full of colourful contradictions, one part life of my sexuality and family is full of deceit, lies and manipulations, another part of my life of my sexuality is half deceit and half truthfulness, and another part of my life of my sexuality is full of love, truthfulness. In short, I live a life of different faces, and I live three different lives in one. I usually am a very happy person around people, but deep down inside, I know I have a harsh reality to deal with. Now, you probably would have already asked, why not tell all your friends and family that I am gay, well I wish it was as simple as that, but for me, in order to survive the harshness of reality, I need to keep a delicate balance between these “three lives” I have, and keep them totally separate, because if any of my lives were to bump into each other, it would be a nuclear fusion, destructively explosive.
I first realize I am attracted to the same sex when I was in year 6, and I fully accepted myself as being gay when I was in year 7, although I fully accept who I was, I didn’t know what it is like to live a life as a gay man, and I was totally focused on my studies, so I didn’t really explore the gay life. My sexuality didn’t catch up with me until well into the first year of Uni in 2006, when my own hormones propelled me to go on gay dating website, back then, back then, that was the only gay life I knew. Then one day, my mum called me, she told me she found out I was gay by checking my email account, through the gay emails. Of course, I had no choice but tell her the truth, but she was very upset, and the next thing I knew, I received an air-ticket, telling me to go back to Hong Kong the next day, I have no choice, by then, my father had just diagnose with bowel cancer, late stage, so I have no choice, I have to go back, without a chance of saying goodbye to my friends.
Immediately being back in Hong Kong, I was isolated from everyone in Australia, I was arranged to see a psychiatrist, who begin to talk me into being straight again, naturally, I fight back with all my knowledge to the point where my psychiatrist gives up, but some things she said does really hurt my heart. I enrolled myself into a course in Hong Kong University during my isolation, to keep learning with a hurt and heavy heart, while dad and mum drilled me daily how I should not do anything that is against human nature, how I brought shame to the family etc. Its tough, it hurts, but I know I am strong, and so I endure it, ride it out. At the same time, my mum got my aunt to bring me to a church to change me, I was never a Christian at that point, and I know how hostile the church towards homosexuality, but I still want to check it out. In church, I clearly was impress by the amount of love shown in church, it was amazing, and so I decided to become a Christian, but first, I prayed and ask God would he be fine if I was gay, because I have vague knowledge that there are gay Christians out there, and God answer was a definite yes, and so, I was lucky enough to reconcile my faith and sexuality easily, without the inner struggle and definitely without going through the Ex-Gay programs. But tough times are hardly over, my parents decide to send me to Beijing in February 2007, to an exchange program to further isolate me, with my dad threatening to jail me if I meet any gay person there. But Beijing was a terrific experience, and it is where I first came out to a friend, an American from San Francisco, and till this day remained a very good friend.
I went back to Hong Kong in July 2007, and by the time, my dad was already hospitalized for 3 months for his cancer, and already beginning to hallucinate from the painkillers he had. Sometimes he is happy to see me, but others, was extremely angry at me, I feel bad for not making happy, and it made worst when my mum told me that he is angry because I am gay, that was unfair, and it really hurt me, because I don’t if my dad really thinks that, and till this day, I still don’t. But I am a person with a strong willpower, I swallow it, and I move on. Two weeks after I am back in Hong Kong, my dad passed away, it was contradictory, I wanted to shed a tear, but I have known so much sadness, that I can no longer cry even when my dad died. And so, after the funeral two more weeks later, I was back in Australia, after a year of isolation.
When I am back in Australia, my journey is far from over, I began to explore more of the gay community, at the same time, I went to a straight church to avoid suspicion from my mum, and over the past two years, I have discover more and more about the gay community, but it is only recent past few months since I joined MCC and Freedom to be that I actually sure of who I am in terms of know myself, and be encouraged enough to make people happy, and I am glad that I met the people there, they are my second family to me. But at the same time, I still live in a life of being watched by my mum, and putting up a fake face in University and straight church. It has never been a easy life, but this is what life is, its tough, its harsh, but I have learnt that toughness is what shape us to be strong, to be fruitful, and to mature as God wants us to be, it is the matter of how we choose to see life, how we want to live it. And even if my life is tough, and still is, I chose to make others happy, and to be happy, and so, no matter what harshness life brings, I still want to make people happy, and that is what God wants me to be.
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