NEW HO QUEEN: THOT POT with LULU WEI, DISCORAPHY, DIEGO ARMAND and others at ROUND (152 Augusta), Friday (November 23), 9 pm. $10.
Queer nightlife used to be limited to the Church-Wellesley neighbourhood, but more parties have been taking place in the city’s west end and catering to diverse crowds. New Ho Queen, a collective spearheaded by Diego Armand and John Thai, puts queer Asian love front and centre. The name itself is a playful reference to New Ho King, a late night Chinatown eatery popular for 3 am meals after a night out.
Armand and Thai have been active in Toronto nightlife for years as partiers, DJs and promoters. However, their experiences have typically led them to scenes dominated by cis, white men.
“I’ve always participated in varied party scenes without much friction, but never really as myself,” explains Thai. Dancing as a queer Asian man brought out certain tensions, such as fetishizing statements, that further emphasized the need to create a space of their own.
Local DJs Valerie Soo and Lulu Wei shared a similar frustration. In 2017, they had plans to start a queer Asian party similar to the Bubble T parties in New York City. With a desire to start small, they ran into issues when a local bar that prioritized booking people of colour, women, trans and queer folks shut down.
“We had no idea how to proceed,” explains Soo. “Little did we know, Diego and John had already started with their similar project.”
Creating opportunities to collaborate with other queer Asians in Toronto has been one of the core goals for the collective from the very beginning. New Ho Queen launched in May, timed with Asian Heritage Month just around the corner and coincidentally, with two other queer Asian parties: New York’s Bubble T and Vancouver’s Ricecake.
Being able to maintain a positive, welcoming space starts from the very second someone clicks “attending” on the Facebook event: there’s a reminder for those who do not identify as Asian that the space is not a “costume party.”
Greg Wong
Red lanterns illuminate a New Ho Queen party.
One focus of the event is engaging visuals. Thai, a designer by profession, explains: “Queer Asian art is a way for us to reinterpret Asian culture in a way that makes us laugh, think and learn. Using distinctly Asian visuals gives us something to rally around and invoke positive memories of our childhood and associations that feel like inside jokes to our community.”
This can be seen through New Ho Queen’s neon sign, red lanterns used as decor and contributions from artists such as a large-scale LED-lit Pocky installation by Paddy Leung and Asian Love T-shirts made in collaboration with Massive Goods.
Armand approached photographer May Truong for a series of black-and-white portraits featuring female-identified and non-binary Asians, which was used on Instagram as promo for the party.
Later, they were featured at the Royal Ontario Museum’s annual Pride Friday Night Live celebrations. In Truong’s portrait of Tao-Ming Lau, founder of Blue Crane Agency, the caption read: “To me, Asian pride is yellow and brown love that radiates with the golden light on the people who cross our paths and who we embrace.”
Alongside the DJs and performances, hosts are also essential to maintaining a positive, welcoming space at all New Ho Queen parties. For some, partying in a venue like ROUND can seem daunting, especially during peak hours when the club gets crowded.
Soo, who doubles as both DJ and host, says, “I usually tell people to arrive early and take over the space.
“In this environment, as opposed to other parties,” she continues. “it’s a little easier to facilitate icebreakers, as people typically have a few more things in common.”
Since launching, New Ho Queen has held parties at ROUND and Glad Day Bookshop with playful names that reference specific aspects of Asian culture such as Fish Sauce and the upcoming Thot Pot. Seems like there’s no better time than now to celebrate queer Asians in Toronto.
“This is a moment to embrace the beauty of being Asian,” says Thai. “It’s a chance to see the manifestation of our collective talents, it’s a moment to make noise and rewrite what it means to be Asian in white society, it’s a celebratory moment for us by us.”
