to live or to research

This was a really amazing night. On saturday I went to my first lesbian bar in China, and it was more fun than any clubs I've been to in Boston. What a wonderful place! It felt so good to walk into such a place again, after a month and a half since I've last been in a place filled with dykes. There were a few gay boys too, who sang and performed, and reminded me that some, not all, but some, gay boys are quite likeable. God, it makes me so happy to just BE in such a place. Everyone was really warm and friendly. May and I had dinner with XA and her girlfriend first, then met up with a big group at this club. Since it was Halloween's weekend, it was packed to the brim. I've heard before from friends who've been here that the scene is centered strictly around the butch-femme dynamic. But it didn't seem very consistent at all. For example, XA and her girlfriend both seem to fall more in the Bu Fen (in -between) category. And this girl, W, who was really friendly to me, appeared to be completely T in her hairstyle, dress, personality, actions. But she said that she was actually very P... I'm not sure what exactly P refers to then. It's all so interesting. But all of a sudden, I don't feel the intellectual interest I had before in "researching" and learning about what this amazingly dynamic community is like. I felt really happy to be introduced and included so quickly into it, and I look forward to living here for the next coupla months and being a part of this community itself, being friends with these people and living this lifestyle. It's kinda like: you can't study something anthropologically if you are part of it, at least, not in that old, European imperialist/racist/"objective" way...