Good morning friends, this is the Ninja reporting for PNTTV from my wee little apartment in Brooklyn, NY! I am settled, comfortable, wifi enabled, and ready to tell you some stories…so… let’s get this show on the road. As I mentioned in my last blog, I arrived in the land of the free just over a month ago and my port of entry was San Francisco! I want to spend a little time in this blog offering my first impression of gay culture in America and how it differs to other places I’ve been to.
First of all, for a gay person arriving in America for the first time, San Francisco is probably the best place to land. The downside to that (if there is a downside at all) is that it gave me a very ‘liberal’ view of the gay community and how homosexuality was accepted in the state of California. What do I mean by liberal? For those that don’t know, and I am probably only be talking to people outside the US, San Francisco is pretty much the capital city of GAY in this country. Some people might argue that LA takes that crown and maybe it does, (I haven’t been down there yet) but from what I’ve seen and what I’ve heard first hand from authentic american west coast lesbians…San Fran deserves the crown). A lot of lesbians live in LA but all of those lesbians know that San Francisco is the lesbian playground. As you will notice yourself one day, San Francisco offers a rather nice first impression of gay culture in this splendid country.
For someone that has just arrived in America from China, seeing a lesbian couple or a gay couple walk down the street holding hands is a sight for sore eyes. I think more so because towards the end of my stay in China I began to feel so disconnected from the gay community. To make my predicament worse, towards the end of 2011, I was recommended by a good friend a reality TV show, the real l word, a show about the lives of a group of lesbians in LA. I started watching the show in hopes that it would reconnect me with my community, however the opposite happened and it made me feel so disconnected from a community that I had felt so much a part of back home in Australia. I craved to walk into a gay bar and feel like I was home and I craved to be around my friends and family whom I felt comfortable with. My friends in China were lovely but they were also incredibly ‘straight minded’ and completely oblivious to gay culture. I began to get really irritated by some of the things they would say.
When I got to the bay area, I saw a lesbian in a bookstore in berkley, I saw a gay hipsters visiting art galleries in oakland, I saw gay tourists walking on the golden gate bridge, I saw lesbians walking around downtown San Jose, I saw old gay couples buying groceries in Alameda. It was home, at least a temporary home, and I felt connected again. The feeling of belonging to something or somewhere or someone is important not just to homosexuals, but to everyone. To know that you’re accepted and appreciated in a community is one of the most amazing feelings ever. I guess the best I can do is thank the people of California for welcoming me home.
My initial impression of gay life in California was that it was a very relaxed life. No one was hiding, no one felt pressured to be something they were not, and the lesbians were ‘hella’ good looking! (I thank my Californian friends for educating me on Californian slang!) Lesbians in the bay area are well dressed, well groomed, successful, intelligent, and strikingly attractive women.
Here comes the sweeping declaration of this blog: Every lesbian must visit San Francisco and the bay area at least once in their life to see the homelands of our splendid community!
[[[Next week: New York!]]]
- The traveling ninja over and out.
This weeks question/s: Have you been to San Francisco? What did you think of the city?
