Please answer the questions about the readings that are provided in the Homework. This is a TurnItIn assignment and we WILL check for originality. There is no upper limit to how many words you

Answer every question the best you can.
Your total words count must be at least 1000 words for the questions all together, but you
may submit more.

Please do not plagiarize, copy material from the internet, or copy another student’s
work. Please read each assignment, and then write the journal notes in your own
words.

A. READ Pai Hsien-yong [Pai Hsien-yung], Crystal Boys: A Novel (at least the first
half). Purchase in the bookstore.
Answer the following questions: What is the general plot of this novel? Who
are the most important five characters? What does “family” mean in the novel—
Does it mean blood relatives, or does it mean something else? Be specific in your
answer; give examples that help you understand what counts as “family” in this
novel. Does the novel compare to any other books you have read (doesn’t have
to be from Chinese literature—even from American or other literatures and films?)?
If so, explain.

B. Read (or view) any one of the following and summarize it in your own words:

1. “From Glass Clique to Tongzhi Nation: Crystal Boys, Identity Formation, and
the Politics of Sexual Shame,” by Hans Tao-Ming Huang, in positions: east asia
cultures critique, 2010, vol. 18, no. 2, special issue on “Beyond the Strai(gh)ts:
Transnationalism and Queer Chinese Politics,” ed. Liu, Petrus and Lisa Rofel:
373-398.

3. Introduction to Fran Martin’s volume of translated queer fiction from Taiwan,
called “Taiwan’s Literature of Transgressive Sexuality,” in Angelwings:
Contemporary Queer Fiction from Taiwan (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i
Press, 2003)