GOOD MORNING, GAY VIETNAM By Mark McDonald Mercury News Vietnam Bureau Sun, Jun. 09, 2002

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam - On most nights, the Sam Son Discotheque, located on the main drag here in old Saigon, is just another ho-hum dance club.  On Tuesdays, however, it becomes the biggest and raciest gay nightspot in Vietnam. Hundreds of young men pack into the place, many of them shirtless, most of them dancing and shouting and groping each other in the dark as Donna Summer songs blast from the speakers. Outside, passing police officers barely give the club a second look.Could this be communist Vietnam, a society still bound to its Confucian traditions of modesty, propriety and obedience, a country that remains wary of the wanton ways of the West? ``I think it's pretty amazing that a place like Sam Son even exists, a place that's really no different than the U.S. or Europe in terms of dress and music,'' says Donn Colby, a physician working on HIV and AIDS prevention in Saigon's gay community. ``The police know what Sam Son is, and they allow it to stay open. That's new. Things are changing.''  Those changes have been accelerated by Vietnam opening its antiquated socialist economy to the outside world. The government's grudging economic reforms have brought profound social changes.  ``The global, open-market policy says a rising tide lifts all boats,'' says Le Quoc Bao, 37, a social worker in Ho Chi Minh City. ``Well, it has lifted our boat, too. The gay boat.''  Two years ago, Colby says, the government officials he worked with were in denial about homosexuality.  ``The official response was: `We don't have gay people here. That's a Western thing. These people are just pretending, and they'll eventually go back to being normal.' '' Then came an explosion in HIV cases in Vietnam, and politicians and health officials were forced to acknowledge a large and growing gay population that was suddenly at risk for AIDS.  Postwar Vietnam has never had any laws against homosexuality, and unlike communist neighbor China it has never considered gay men and lesbians to be somehow diseased or mentally ill. And despite occasional articles in state-run newspapers about the ``dangers'' of gay life, the government does not include homosexuality on its official list of ``social evils'' that includes prostitution and drug abuse. ``We don't call homosexuality a social evil because it's not so widespread, but we've been warning people and families about it,'' says a senior official with the Vietnam News Agency. ``It's mostly underground, but it can grow if the police aren't vigilant.'' There are no estimates of the numbers of gay people in Vietnam, and no universities or government agencies are studying gay issues. Until two years ago, Vietnam's Marriage and Family Law did not even mention homosexuality, and a recent amendment to the law banned only same-sex marriage.  Tradition-minded officials were shocked that two lesbians were married in 1998 in the southern city of Vinh Long. It seems local authorities had to allow the wedding because there were no explicit provisions against it. The marriage has since broken up. ``Being gay is fun here,'' says Bao, the Saigon social worker. ``The government doesn't intrude very much on us. We keep to ourselves, and they leave us alone.  Five years ago, gay men never went out at night together. We just phoned each other. It's very different now.  It's OK.  It's easy.``  Easy for those whose parents and employers have accepted their homosexuality, not so easy for the vast majority of those whose families who believe that gays are perverted, demented or bewitched. Bao certainly had difficulties with his own family when, at 13, he told them he was sexually attracted to other boys.``My father was shocked, but he told me to keep quiet about it, and he took good care of me,'' Bao says. ``My three brothers and three sisters all said it was too horrible. My mother beat me. She looked at me as a monster.'' So, for the time being, at least in Ho Chi Minh City, a newfound sexual freedom is liberation enough, whether it's Tuesday-night dancing at Sam Son, holding hands in a small park near the airport, flirting at a downtown ice-cream shop, or meeting in a private room at the Star Sauna.  In the freewheeling south, Bao and his gay friends often take group vacations to the nearby beach towns of Phan Thiet or Vung Tau, which recently held a gay parade. They dress in women's clothes and put on skits and plays, and sometimes they hold wedding ceremonies.``It's all very open,'' he says. ``We stay in guesthouses. The owners don't object. They love it. They want the money.'' Bao is careful to make a distinction between gay men like himself and ``the MSM,'' the vernacular for men who have sex with men. Male prostitutes are easily found in Saigon now, he says, and the MSM areas, such as District 5 in Ho Chi Minh City, have become quite dangerous. Muggings, drug abuse and sex workers infected with HIV and AIDS are said to be commonplace there.``The number of MSM is going up,'' Bao says, ``because of the money and because it's a new kind of pleasure for sex addicts.''But that's Saigon. Things are decidedly different in rural areas and in the north -- more repressed, more closeted, even fearful. ``Hanoi is not open like Ho Chi Minh City,'' says Bao, a direct and gregarious man who works with foreign aid groups. ``Northerners have a more traditional culture. They're more strict and conservative. In Hanoi, I behave more carefully. My colleagues there are always warning me about being too open.  ''Behavior that might draw only a smile or a shrug in Ho Chi Minh City might well qualify as scandalous in Hanoi, where Communist Party conservatives are on the alert for ``activities that violate the civilized lifestyle of the public. ''It was this legal provision -- purposely vague and undefined -- that was used to investigate a late-night bash at the Press Club, an upscale restaurant in the capital that is favored by expatriates and well-to-do Vietnamese.  Local officials were horrified by a party there called Blue Fantasy. Official media described it as ``an illegal crazy carnival'' of ``dirty dances and wild shouting'' that included ``young Vietnamese men dressed like girls, United Nations soldiers and priests from the Nguyen dynasty.'' One measure of Vietnam's gay visibility is a social-services hotline in the capital that is fielding an increasing number of calls from young Hanoians questioning their sexuality. The advice that's dispensed, however, might strike gays in the United States as archaic -- a throwback to the 1950s.``We have experts here on gay people,'' says the hotline director, Ly Minh Hang. ``Most gay people have been badly affected by newspapers and other bad materials. We gradually lead them back to the right way of thinking. We remind them of their families and the traditions of Vietnam.'' Hang, a psychologist, said four young women had called the hotline, concerned about new feelings of closeness that had developed as they studied together. They felt a growing sexual attraction, and some of them wanted to live together.``We told them homosexuality is just a bad habit and it will affect their studies,'' Hang said. ``They will need good jobs, and if they keep on with this attitude they may end up serving in a bia om, and their life will go to hell -- or worse.''A bia om is a bar where the waitresses and hostesses are usually prostitutes. In Vietnamese, bia means beer and om means hug. It's this prevailing attitude among Vietnamese families, Bao and other men say, that keeps most gay people in the closet. There's also the perception that if someone is ``too gay,'' he or she could lose a valued job, a promotion or a scholarship, or perhaps be evicted from a hard-to-find apartment.This quiet but insidious discrimination has not yet led to a nascent gay-rights movement in Vietnam, and there is none taking shape. The gay community in Ho Chi Minh City, which is just now poking its head above ground, seems to understand the boundaries set by the police and other official guardians of Vietnamese culture.``There's the concern that if gay men do become more open and visible, there could be a backlash,'' says Colby. ``If they stand up and say, `Here I am,' it brings on a threat and the government will start closing places down.''