Hong Kong’s Pink Season is officially upon us, bringing in a programme of activities and entertainment as bright, bold, varied and vibrant as the LGBT community it celebrates. As we prepare for seven weeks of fabulousness and fun, Coconuts HK talks to the city’s premier drag queen, La Chiquitta, about her brand new single, bringing heart to her art, and the need to unite Hong Kong’s fractured “queer community”.
Having come to Hong Kong from Manila to “work for The Mouse” (Disney) in 2005, La Chiquitta first won the crown as Hong Kong’s favourite he-she five years later with the release of her excessively sassy and surreptitiously catchy single “Tranny in the House”. If you haven’t had the pleasure yet, watch the video below NOW. It’s awesome, and the best way to introduce you to our subject.
Apart from coming number one in our rundown of Hong Kong’s top ALS Ice Bucket Challenge videos last month, this Pinoy princess has been uncharacteristically quiet of late, but for good reason. The ballsy babe is now back with a brand new single, set to air on Sept. 27 on RTHK’s “The Gaybourhood” programme, which La Chiquitta co-hosts with DJ Stonedog. The first live performance will take place later the same night at the free Drag Overdose party.
Although La Chiquitta promises the new offering, “Party Responsibly”, will pack more pout than preach, as the title suggests, a serious message lies between the lines. The single is a homage to former Hong Kong drug safety website “Flying High, Landing Safe”, initiated by Dimsum Magazine publisher Joe Lam but promptly shut down by the government.
Commenting on the clear reluctance of Hongkongers to talk about addiction, La Chiquitta says she sees the issue much like she sees sexuality, as something best approached with honesty and openness.
“If a person has been exposed to addiction, there is nothing you can do about it, and the more you make him feel it is wrong, the more he will lie to you,” La Chiquitta tells us while grabbing a coffee in Sheung Wan as her male, designer stubble-donning alter-ego, Rye Bautista. “I’m saying, ‘I know you want it – then better party responsibly, ‘cos I ain’t bringing you to A&E, dude!’”
Despite hero-worshipping fellow Filipino drag queen Joni of Les Fleurs Sauvages since his teens, Rye insists that he fell into drag by accident after making a spoof Dream Girls video for a friend’s Hong Kong leaving present in 2007. When the three Disney colleagues were subsequently persuaded to repeat the act one night at their local haunt Volume, a group was born.
Made up of Coco, Almond and Nutmeg, The Swarovskis – so named after the matching necklaces they wore – were soon rebranded as the Glitterazis (for copyright reasons) and told by Evan, the owner of Volume, to adorn themselves with more glamorous individual monikers. The nuts theme was just too masculine!
“He [Evan] sent us a list of 200 drag names to pick from, but when we first saw Chiquitta [meaning little banana], we all knew that it was for me, because I was the most exotic looking of us. And it just became ‘La Chiquitta’ because they wouldn’t accept just one name when I opened my own Facebook page. My friends still get confused when getting notifications from ‘La’”, Rye laughs.
Despite almost getting dropped from the group after turning up one night with unshaved armpits and always feeling “It was just me wearing a dress and false eye lashes”, Rye decided to stick with La Chiquitta when the group disbanded due to Disney’s no-compete contract clause.
In the absence of a “Drag Mother” to act as his mentor, Rye spent months mastering his look and developing La Chiquitta’s personality. Speaking in the third (and fourth) person, as must make the most sense when you live a double life, Rye explains that his two personas are markedly different, but often confused.
“When people see Rye out, they expect Rye to be the same as La Chiquitta, but Rye is actually much more introvert than Chiquitta. Rye used to be a quite a party boy, but when Chiquitta started to own the limelight, he became a homebody.”
But don’t let this fool you into thinking that La Chiquitta is nothing but a loud and lairy gay cliché, as Rye has taken time to ensure she’s much more than just a caricature.
“Chiquitta is a human being, Chiquitta tries her best, and she’s been very, very adamant from the beginning that she will not be an overly camp queen. There’s nothing wrong with that – it’s one of the genres – but I didn’t want to be a bitchy queen.”
Rye’s reasoning for this comes from his assessment of the Hong Kong drag scene as underdeveloped, and his feeling that some locals find it intimidating, “almost like being scared of clowns “. He hopes La Chiquitta can break down these barriers with her kindness and inclusiveness, until all audiences are as pleased to see her as Rye’s favourite group – Hong Kong’s straight expats.
“I love straight people because you don’t have to do anything. You walk in, and automatically they look at you and say, ‘That’s what we paid for”, cries Rye with a flourish. He adds that Hong Kong’s gay community are more interested in critiquing La Chiquitta’s outfits than her act. They’ve seen her in action countless times and are therefore less susceptible to her charms.
“When straight people organise a party, they automatically tell their friends, ‘She’s La Chiquitta, she’s the top drag queen in Hong Kong’, even though there’s no evidence that I’m that. I’m just the only drag queen that has a website and a single. Straight people are also not very picky about you being late as they put it down to you being a diva. The gays HATE that because everybody wants to be the diva, darling.”
Although acknowledging that, compared to a lot of places, “Hong Kong is paradise” for gay people, when questioned about his thoughts on the territory’s LGBT policies, Rye claims that the lack of interlinked support between the many offshoots of the community must be remedied before progress can be made politically.
“I think the most important thing is to agree to disagree [with the government], but we can’t come to that position, because even within our own community, we’re fighting each other,” says Rye. He claims that “fairies” and “queens” like himself are shunned by the “muscle boys” who find them too girly.
“We will never be able to settle our own differences, and because of that, we’ll never be able to say, ‘Look, we’re a happy bunch. We’re not here to harm you’. We cannot say that at the moment because we’re all harming each other.”
Now in it’s fourth spectacular year, Drag Overdose – held at Volume from 10pm on Sept. 27 – is both La Chiquitta’s personal contribution to Pink Season and Rye’s attempt to bring all Hongkongers, gay, straight, muscle boys and fairies, together in a flurry of sequins and acceptance.
Queen up or king down (if you want to), hear “Party Responsibly” before it’s released worldwide on iTunes the following day, and be whoever you want to be for one night only…and the rest of your life.
See you there, girlfriends!
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