Beijing games ... in the pink in China

A Paula Abdul video plays on two flatscreen televisions, followed by the Pussycat Dolls. About 100 people will filter in and out of here tonight, a Thursday in mid-June, says club manager Jimmy Zhang. He adds that the club is packed at weekends - and will be even busier once the dance floor expansion is completed next month.

The rise of China's gay community is astonishing when you consider that homosexuality wasn't removed from the list of "hooligan acts" until 1997, and it wasn't until 2001 that it was no longer classified as a mental disorder.

"We're pretty open now," says Zhang. "If we want to kiss, we kiss. If we want to hug, we hug."

On the same Thursday night, White Rabbit (+13 3211 23678, whiterabbitbeijing@gmail.com), an underground dance club near Chaoyang Park, is hosting its weekly gay and lesbian event, Queeressence. And Promen (groups.yahoo.com/group/promen), a network of gay professionals, is holding its regular gathering downtown at the extravagant Lan Club (+10 5109 6012/13, lanbeijing.com).

The latest manifestation of China's burgeoning gay scene is the emergence of gay tourism. In recent years, travel companies have begun offering tour packages to gay visitors to the Middle Kingdom, which is slowly - if awkwardly - coming to terms with homosexuality. In late 2005, Go Pink China (gopinkchina.com) became the first China-based travel company to offer gay-friendly tours. Accompanied by gay, English-speaking guides, Go Pink offers its primarily western clients city tours of Beijing, Shanghai and Xi'an and custom adventure trips to the Silk Road, Yunnan, Sichuan and elsewhere. Sightseeing is enlivened with "insider stories about gay empires, gay affairs in the Forbidden City and the gay history of China."

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