I tried not to look at any other food in three-alley-long market we passed through. A couple of weeks previously Xiao Wai, one of the guys who works at Jennifer’s bar, had come up to me and asked with exaggerated innocence: “So Anya, do you have class on Saturdays? No? Well, do you have to go to work on Saturdays? No? So, you’re pretty much free on Saturdays?” and, having gotten a very puzzled affirmative, he sprung the question: “Well then why don’t you go with us to the march?” Turns out there’s a Gay Pride Parade in Taipei, now in its third year. He and Vany seemed pretty tickled by the idea of my joining them. I think the notion of walking in such a thing if you are not wholeheartedly devoted to the homosexual lifestyle is still relatively interesting here, unless you have the excuse of being a wholeheartedly devoted member of some other generally sexually marginalized group (we ended up walking right behind the prostitutes’ rights people, e.g.). For instance, I saw a girl I knew from the community activism scene walking on the sidewalk next to where the parade passed, and jumped out of the stream to talk to her. (She seemed pretty surprised to see me; I don’t know if it was because of the wholeheartedly devotional status of the thing or just because there was practically no publicity for the event and so people were there largely by acquaintance, and people tend to be surprised when a foreigner knows anyone at all.) She had “a friend marching in the parade” and had come to show her support, was on the sidewalk just because she was taking pictures, and would jump in the stream soon; half an hour later I saw her on another sidewalk next to where the parade was passing.

I was interviewed, briefly, for an online voicestream something or other type of thing; it being the first time I've ever been chosen as a representative foreigner (following much finger-pointing by the other potential targets), I totally fumbled it an just said how nice it was that everyone was getting together, rather than saying how disappointed I was that at the last moment the city government had cut the promised funding for the event, despite its having been already part of the budget and despite its having been offered last year, apparently (although this I just heard from someone) because the Vice President, who as a middle aged single woman is of course widely reputed to be gay herself, made some comment about how these people shouldn't take up the nation's resources. Next time I will be more prepared with my properly political speech; I'm sure the sweet boy with the very radio voice doing the interviewing would have been pleased.

The march was quite small; with five of us affiliated with J’s, I kind of felt like we ought to have had our own banner; it was about as many people as anyone else was fielding.