Hongwei Bao (HOT POT)

Blending queer East Asian history with an intimate story of friendship, HOT POT marks the stage debut of playwright, poet and academic Hongwei Bao. Set around a hot pot reunion between four university friends, the play explores the tensions between youthful idealism and adult reality, weaving together themes of migration, identity, love and belonging in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic. Developed with London-based Auka Productions and brought to life by a predominantly East and Southeast Asian creative team, HOT POT is both a deeply personal and culturally significant work — one that celebrates queer East Asian voices while asking universal questions about friendship, change and the compromises we make as we grow older.

Q) Hello - thanks for taking the time to answer some questions. Before we begin, please could you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about HOT POT?

I’m a queer East playwright, poet and academic based in the UK. My research and creative writing focus primarily on queer East Asian experience. My non-fiction book Queering the Asian Diaspora is a cultural history of queer East Asian cultural production in the UK and internationally during the Covid pandemic. My poetry collections, The Passion of the Rabbit God and Self-Portrait as a Banana, rewrite classical Chinese stories such as the Rabbit God story from contemporary perspectives.

HOT POT is my debut stage play. The play shares key themes such as queer desire, East Asian identity and migration experience with my previous works. But it’s also different – it is a stage play telling the story of four friends’ lives and their relationship over a twenty-year period. The theoretical form and dramatic storytelling make the key themes more interesting and relatable to the audience.

Q) HOT POT is the debut production from Auka Productions. What has it been like developing the play with a new company?

Auka Productions is a brand-new company in London made up of ‘sorta kinda young-ish dreamers with a stubborn belief in the magic and power of live theatre’. They want to build something from the ground up. No big fanfare, no big names. Just a love for language, performance, and stories that are burning to be told. They want to platform compelling theatre that places performance and storytelling at its very heart and soul. Their artistic vision is to support and showcase new writing in partnership with other theatre companies, turning page to stage. I share their political and artistic vision, and that’s what brought us together in the first place.

For the HOT POT production, I am very fortunate to work with a brilliant cast and creative team, most of whom are of East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) heritage – this also reflects our goal of using the play to amplify East and Southeast Asian voices on the UK stage. Every team member is so unique and talented, and they bring their unique experience and craft into the play. I was with the team at the start of the rehearsal and was greatly impressed with their talent, professionalism and commitment to tell the story well. I believe the show will be a smash.

Q) What drew you to the idea of using a shared meal as the emotional setting for the play?

I love eating and have a passion for food. A play with delicious East Asian food on stage can never go wrong for me! Food has special meanings in East Asian culture: a hot pot meal usually represents togetherness and reunion. For example, when I get together with my old friends in China, we always go to a hot pot restaurant, where everyone cooks food for themselves and for others, and shares food with each other – it’s genuinely a shared, collective and communal experience.

HOT POT is a play about the trials and tribulations of four university friends. Naturally they will want to celebrate the twenty-year anniversary of their graduation in a hot pot restaurant! The sizzling and boiling of the broth can become a visual metaphor for the intensity and tensions of their relationship.

I’ve often thought about the reason why hot pot becomes a favourite food for friends and family reunions, when there are many other culinary options available. It occurs to me that a hot pot meal is usually quite affordable and everyone can choose their favourite ingredients, so it’s easy to make everyone happy. Also, everyone participates in cooking and sharing food; so it’s a very embodied and affective way of eating together. The process of eating is also the process of communication, physical and emotional, so this opens up a lot of space for acting. Also importantly, hot pot seems to embody a sense of egalitarianism: regardless of rich or poor, people eat similar foods and in similar ways. Of course there are always more dominant people at the table, who want to tell others what and how to eat. The power relations embedded during a hot pot meal is also what the play seeks to explore.

Q) The play explores “the small betrayals of adult life.” What kinds of betrayals were you most interested in examining?

Without spoiling the play for audiences who want to see the show, let me just say that we all have dreams when we were young, or younger: dreams to become a better person, dreams to live an authentic life, dreams to change society. And that’s a good thing. But when we step out of schools or universities, we often find our dreams unrealistic, clashing with the reality, and we may have to make difficult choices, and even give up our dreams. The tension

between dream and reality is a key theme that the play explores.

Q) Friendship is often less explored on stage than romance or family relationships. Why did

you want friendship to sit at the heart of this story?

There are many significant relationships that we cannot choose or change much: family is such an example. And our society is obsessed with heterosexual and even homosexual norms: the romantic relationship is such an example, and they are usually quite exclusive – society usually expects a person to be in one romantic relationship at a time. Friendship, in contrast, is something we are more in control of. We can choose whom to be friends with, build that friendship, and have as many friends as possible. Friendship is a beautiful thing: strangers come together, feel attracted to or compatible with each other. Friends often support each other without conditions, and without asking much for return. As a result, friendship can be more sustaining than a romantic relationship. Some friendship lasts a lifetime. What a wonderful thing! There should have been more stories about friendship on stage!

In HOT POT, the four friends meet at the university and their friendship lasts more than twenty years. They come from different socioeconomic backgrounds. In normal circumstances, they may never have had the chance to meet each other. But there they are – hanging out together and enjoying the company of one another. People say that friendships made in school and university days are the ‘purest’ and most long-lasting, because people make friends with each other not for utilitarian reasons; they simply like each other. Friendships are ideally strong ties, but they are often threatened by other things, such as money and social status, especially when people grow up, have their own families, careers and priorities. I often wonder: Why do some friendships last longer than others? When I cannot get an answer, I can only use the Buddhist notion of yuan 缘, or destiny, to account for the weal and woe, thick and thin of human relationships.

Q) Why did you choose to use the period after the Covid pandemic as the timeframe of the play? What influence did that have on the tone of the play and how do you wish for it to be explored?

The story of HOT POT was first conceived during one of the Covid lockdowns in the UK. Being forced to quarantine at home, I turned to poetry, fiction and stage play to express myself. Both in Asia and in the UK, there were lots of discussions about whether quarantine measures were necessary and to what extent. This became a polemical issue among friends and in families. I’ve known friends and even family members breaking up because of their different opinions, which were often taken to represent political and ideological differences. A few years after the pandemic, there have not been many shows that critically reflect that important historical period, which is a real shame. HOT POT fills this gap, but it deals with that history in a humorous, intimate way that does not feel too heavy or serious.

Although the lockdown in the West was overall not so strict compared to that in Asia, many East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) people living in the diaspora experienced Sinophobia and anti-Asian racism, from microaggressions to physical attacks. That was also a time when many Asian people had to make difficult choices about their lives, citizenship and sense of belonging. On top of this, the Covid pandemic also became a historical period that witnessed rising East and Southeast Asian consciousness and community activism, as documented in my nonfiction book Queering the Asian Diaspora. HOT POT therefore captures some of the identity struggles of the ESEA people during the pandemic. Also importantly, it participates in the burgeoning ESEA consciousness and cultural production in the UK and globally, celebrating Asian identity and experience in its diversity. In this sense, the story of HOT POT would not be possible without the context of the Covid pandemic; nor would the production of the play be possible.

Q) The play explores gay identity through East Asian perspectives. Why did it feel important to tell this story now?

Because there is a long and rich queer history in East Asia. In much of pre-modern Asia, same-sex intimacy was tolerated and even celebrated. For example, many Chinese emperors had their male lovers; and there’s even a Daoist deity called the Rabbit God to protect queer people. It was only through Western imperialism, colonialism, and the introduction of Western ‘modernity’ at the beginning of the twentieth century that same-sex intimacy and gender crossing became a ‘problem’ in Asia. Today, many Asian governments claim that LGBTQIA+ people follow ‘Western lifestyles’ and are under ‘Western influence’ – that is out of genuine ignorance of their own historical and cultural traditions. HOT POT reminds people of that cultural heritage and encourages people to remember and celebrate Asia’s queer heritage.

Also because LGBTQIA+ rights are under threats in many East Asian countries. For example, China has witnessed shrinking spaces for LGBTQIA+ existence in recent years: community organisations and venues have been shut down; community leaders and activists have been harassed by the police; and queer representations have been censored on screen, stage and the Internet. So it is necessary to draw attention to queer people’s struggles, as well as their resilience, in Asia.

There’s also another important reason: queer communities in the West are usually white and Eurocentric, lacking in intersectional diversity. This is represented on screen and stage: very few of the films and stage plays feature queer East Asian experiences. HOT POT may well be one of the first queer East Asian plays produced and touring in the UK. We hope to use this opportunity to amplify under-represented queer East Asian voices, and to showcase queer and East Asian theatre professionals’ work on stage.

Q) Why do you think representation is so important in the theatre industry?

ESEA voices are underrepresented in UK theatre, and queer ESEA people especially so. Our audience survey shows that 100% of respondents feel that queer ESEA representation is lacking in the UK theatre scene. Among them, 83.3% reported feeling unsatisfied or highly unsatisfied with the current portrayal of queer ESEA stories.

Lack of representation affects queer ESEA people, because lack of visibility can lead to self- doubt and low esteem. It also affects the diversity and wellbeing of the theatre industry. To speak to audiences from different communities, UK theatre needs new narratives that can reflect the diversity of our society. We have seen many white LGBTQIA+ stories and heteronormative ESEA stories. HOT POT reminds us that not all LGBTQIA+ people are white, and not all ESEA people are queer, and that ethnicity and sexuality can have interesting intersections. It is these intersections and differences that we should celebrate in society and in the theatre industry.

Another important reason why we need more queer ESEA stories is that they offer opportunities for queer ESEA theatre professionals. Queer ESEA actors and creatives have long felt that there is not much space for them in the UK’s theatre industry, because there are not many plays that focus on queer and ESEA experiences, and queer ESEA actors are often given insignificant supporting roles to fulfil a company’s EDI quota. Representation is not simply about who gets to appear on stage; it is also about whether, and how many, job opportunities are available for queer ESEA creatives. I am pleased that the HOT POT production has a predominantly ESEA cast and creative team, and they are all brilliant!

Q) The play unfolds over a single evening in one location. What were the creative challenges of sustaining tension and revelation within such an intimate setting?

The basic structure of the play is informed by the classic one-act play structure in which one core event unfolds entirely in a single setting. This well-tested dramatic structure may look slightly simple but proves efficient, as it can effectively build the dramatic tension. The downside of this format is that the play can look slightly monotonous. In order to overcome this weakness, we have done the following: (1) use the Rabbit God story as a framing device, telling the story in three parts and adding a magical and surrealist dimension to the otherwise naturalist play; (2) the present narratives are intercut with flashbacks of the four friends’ university days, which develops the character and expands the historical depth of the narrative; (3) our lighting, sound and stage design are fantastic, and they complement the acting and create compelling visual storytelling. The play is designed to be watched in a single sitting, without an intermission. I hope it can keep the audience engaged all the way through.

Q) How did you develop the dynamics between the four friends so that each relationship feels layered and lived-in?

I trained as a cultural historian. The play is based on my two-decades of research into Asian queer history and culture, incorporating archival research with oral history interviews. Although the story of HOT POT is fictional, the four characters’ life stories are based on the lives of hundreds of queer ESEA people, so they appear plausible and credible. At community reading events, we received audience feedback that the characters feel very vivid and the story very ‘real’.

During the rehearsal, the director Namoo Chae Lee and I developed ‘character profiles’ together with the actors, making sure each character’s life trajectory is clear and believable. The actors also worked hard on the characters and their relationships. During the process of R&D and rehearsal, the actors become friends. They bring themselves into the characters, and their friendship into the play. Their brilliant work has made each relationship feel layered and lived in.

Q) What kind of conversations or emotional responses do you hope audiences leave the theatre having?

Every member of the audience will have their own understanding of and relationship to the play, and we encourage different interpretations. In our R&D workshops, queer and East Asian audiences approach the play in different ways from non-queer and non-East Asian audiences. But they all like the play and get different things from the play, and that is great to see.

Some audience members have described the play as a ‘bittersweet’ story about friendship, love and growing up. I find this an apt description of the play’s dominant mood. Queer and East Asian stories tend to be either ‘bitter’, dealing with difficult histories and traumatic pasts, or ‘sweet’, the boy-meets-girl ‘happy ever after’ type. A mixture of ‘bitterness’ and ‘sweetness’ is probably a great thing: with historical depth and social significance, and at the same time humane and humorous.

Q) Why should audiences come along?

From a cultural historian’s perspective, HOT POT is probably one of the first queer East Asian plays touring in the UK, and is one of the few such plays internationally. So it has historical and cultural significance. If you care about queer East Asian representation on stage, you should come and see the play.

Artistically, HOT POT tells a beautiful story, and is professionally made. It is created by a talented group of East Asian cast and creative team. I attended the rehearsals and was very much impressed by their craft and professionalism. The show will offer you a visual spectacle and take you on an emotional rollercoaster. It is definitely worth watching.

HOT POT will be touring in the UK between 16th June and 5th July. Check out a show near you here.

Photography by Tom Morley