HOT POT: New Stage Play Offers Nuanced Representation of Queer East Asian Experience by Hongwei Bao

Despite the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Taiwan and Thailand, most countries in Asia still lack laws and government policies to protect LGBTQIA+ rights. Queer people have been struggling for authenticity, acceptance and visibility, often against illiberal states and conservative cultural traditions. LGBTQIA+ communities in Asia are little known and poorly understood, and queer East Asian experience rarely appears on stage and screen. It is in this context that my queer East Asian play HOT POT 火鍋, produced by Auka Productions and touring in UK theatres in June and July, makes an important contribution to both queer and East Asian representations on stage.

The hot pot is a popular food in East and Southeast Asia, where meat and vegetables are thrown into seasoned, boiling soup to get cooked. At a hot pot dinner, people cook food together and help themselves (and others) to the food. This dining experience is often shared, collaborative and communal, representing togetherness and reunion. Hot pot therefore serves as an apt metaphor for the relationship of four university friends who get together after the COVID pandemic to celebrate the twenty years since their graduation from the university. As the heat rises and steam evaporates, the tension between the four friends also escalates as they reminisce about the past and boast of current achievements. There are also hidden secrets and untold feelings, which is why much of the text on the poster is blacked out.

I wrote HOT POT first as a short story titled ‘Reunion’ and then developed it into a 70-minute stage play, first on the Fifth Word Playwright programme, and with the help of Auka Productions who came onboard to work on the Research and Development process of the play with dramaturgical support, rehearsed readings, and ultimately, producing the fully staged version of the play, supported by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council and the University of Nottingham. As a brand-new theatre company that is global majority, queer and neurodivergent-led, Auka Productions is dedicated to amplifying marginalised voices, based on a simple dream of wanting 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.

When it comes to stage and screen representation, East Asian men usually fall into the ‘beautiful young boys’ trope, effeminised and desexualised. East Asian women are often seen as weak and passive ‘virtuous wives and good mothers’. Queer East Asians frequently appear as powerless victims of family, society and the state. HOT POT strives to subvert such clichéd cultural stereotypes, offering a nuanced representation of queer East Asian experience, as neither victorious nor tragic, but as complex, nuanced, and full of emotional depths.

As such, we see in the play the protagonists debate about sexual identity and coming out, getting married or staying single, living in Asia versus living in the West, the opportunities and costs of pursuing authenticity and personal freedom. Taken-for-granted notions such as coming out and being oneself are interrogated. My aim is not to provide a one-size-fits-all solution, but to encourage the audience to listen to both sides of the argument and make up their own minds.

A framing device I use for the play is the story of the Rabbit God, patron saint of LGBTQIA+ people in East Asia. The Rabbit God comes from a 17th-century Chinese folk tale about a young man’s pursuit of gay love despite harsh social conditions. Some poems from my poetry collection The Passion of the Rabbit God have found their way into the play, giving the play a poetic, magical, and surrealist feel.

The play features a predominantly East and Southeast Asian cast and creative team, which is a very rare thing to see on the UK’s theatre stage. Auka Productions hopes to use this opportunity to raise the visibility and showcase the work of these brilliant professionals in the UK’s creative and cultural industries.

HOT POT will be touring in UK theatres from 16 June to 5 July. Check out the show schedule here to find the show near you.

HOT POT runs from 16 – 21 June 2026 at Playhouse East, 258 Kingsland Rd, London E8 4DG, United Kingdom.

Hongwei Bao is a playwright, poet and academic based in Nottingham, UK. He is the author of Queering the Asian Diaspora. HOT POT is his debut stage play.