Chinese GL

yuerstruly and I came up with this (extremely short, and not all danmei) list for fun. We were seriously hampered in this task by the fact that neither of us reads all that much danmei (and in fact, such danmei I've read consists mainly of the Erha and MDZS sex scenes, at the instigation of friends who wanted to know if they were sexy in the original). There's also the usual problem that there are no non-MTL translations for most of the baihe novels in the list. But ANYWAY.

• If you liked Sha Po Lang, you might also like Minister Xie (谢相, pinyin: xie xiang) by Ruo Hua Ci Shu (若花辞树). In Minister Xie, teenage emperor Liu Zao tries to get to grips with ruling an empire while also doing her best to turn her prime minister Xie Yi (who is 14 years older than her, and also her sort-of aunt) into her wife. I have been reliably informed that she is even more Obsessed and Dramatique about the latter task than Changgeng is in relation to Gu Yun. Brief reviews are available here and here.
  
• If you liked Erha, you might also like the first 40% of The Abandoned (弃仙, pinyin: qi xian) by Mu Feng Qing Nian (沐枫轻年). Featuring extreme xianxia shizunfuckery and multiple rebirths, the first chapter of The Abandoned alone has the protagonist masturbating to a painting of her shizun, a curse that's basically the xianxia version of sex pollen, multiple instances of hurt/comfort, stratospheric levels of unhealthy disciple/shizun co-dependence, a double rebirth, the protagonist allowing her shizun to stab her in the shoulder so that she could get close enough to kiss her shizun, and the protagonist stealing her shizun's jade pendant for use as a masturbation aid. I say the first 40% because the remainder of the novel is unfortunately a bit of a drag (though for all I know, the back half of Erha also overstays its welcome). Brief review here.
  
• If you liked SVSSS, you might also like An Incantation for Subduing a Dragon/Dragon Subjugation Incantation (降龙诀, pinyin: xiang long jue) by Shi Wei Yue Shang (时微月上). Protagonist Luo Qingci transmigrates into a xianxia novel and into the body of female lead Ruan Li's evil, conniving shizun. Being genre savvy, Luo Qingci tries her best to avoid the character's canonical grisly fate, only to discover that her disciple might just be falling in love with her. Oh, and Ruan Li is also a dragon. Ongoing fan translation here.
  
• If you liked Qiang Jin Jiu, you might also like At Her Mercy (我为鱼肉, pinyin: wo wei yurou) by Ning Yuan (宁远). Except that everyone in At Her Mercy is evil. An English-language translation of At Her Mercy has been licensed by Rosmei (under the title At the World's Mercy), though the publication date is not yet known.

And now we come to the non-danmei though still danmei-adjacent comps:

• If you liked Nirvana in Fire/The Langya List, you might also like At Her Mercy, except that as noted above, everyone in At Her Mercy is evil.
  
• If you liked the Daomu Biji/The Lost Tomb series, you might also like Exploring an Empty Tomb (探虚陵, pinyin: tan xu ling) by Jun Sola (君sola) and Reading the Remnants (问棺, pinyin: wen guan) by Qi Xiao Huang Shu (七小皇叔). Obviously I don't know anything about the Daomu Biji series except that they're tomb-raiding novels, and both Exploring an Empty Tomb and Reading the Remnants are also tomb-raiding novels, so... close enough, I hope? Exploring an Empty Tomb is also literally millions of words long. A partial fan translation of Exploring an Empty Tomb is available here. A partial fan translation of Reading the Remnants is available here, and a fuller one here.

Comment with your own comps, if you have them! Also, feel free to post a danmei title, say what you liked about it and/or what its most notable qualities are, and people who read more baihe can hopefully find some comps for you!

Qi Xiao Huang Shu, the author of Reading the Remnants (问棺, pinyin: wen guan), announced today on Weibo that the novel has been licensed for publication in Vietnamese. The Vietnamese edition will be published in two volumes by Meibooks. No release date seems to have been announced yet. However, details of the cover design and various inclusion have been posted by Meibooks on Facebook.

Qi Xiao Huang Shu also indicated that other-language versions of Reading the Remnants and another of her novels, Pat Me on the Back (帮我拍拍, pinyin: bang wo paipai) will be forthcoming in due course, though it's anyone's guess which languages those will be in (speculation in the comments welcome!)

I'm aware of Vietnamese editions of two baihe novels that are currently in print: Why Not Drink Some Soup of Forgetfulness (不如来碗孟婆汤, pinyin: buru lai wan mengpo tang) by Feng Yue Bo (风月泊) and Hunger. Lust* (食色, pinyin: shi se) by Ning Yuan (宁远). Both of these are published by Amak, and are listed here and here on the publisher's website. I've also been told that Vietnamese editions of Exploring an Empty Tomb (探虚陵, pinyin: tan xu ling) by Jun Sola (君sola) and The Collapsing Palace (宫倾, pinyin: gong qing) by Ming Ye (明也) have been published or at least licensed, but have not seen any listings or other confirmation of those, so if anyone has any information on that front, I'd be grateful for it!

*Note: Obviously I shamelessly stole the format of this title translation from Lust. Caution.

This post is meant to provide a brief introduction to baihe as a literary genre and a starting point for those seeking to get into it. I consider baihe to be a distinct genre of its own, though I'd be hard-pressed to articulate its precise contours (or even general contours). Certainly I have a sense of baihe as being distinct from what I would classify as 'serious queer/lesbian literature', though here I'm hampered by my lack of knowledge about queer literature written in Chinese. Yan Geling's (严歌苓) novella White Snake might conceivably count as one, but I'm simply too unfamiliar with the genre as a whole to provide any sort of sensible comment. I also have a sense of baihe as being in conversation with its Japanese counterpart yuri, but again I'm woefully ignorant of yuri as a genre.

Baihe often seems to be regarded by international fandom as a sort of distaff counterpart to danmei (m/m romance), but my sense is that mainland baihe readers (and potentially other Sinophone audiences in Asia) do not really see baihe and danmei as having particularly close links beyond the fact that they deal with same-gender romance. In fact, I I've seen more mainland baihe readers say they also read yanqing (f/m romance, whose popularity runs rings around both danmei and baihe) than baihe readers say they also read danmei. There is also limited overlap between baihe and danmei in terms of their authorship. There are more authors who write yanqing+baihe than authors who write danmei+baihe, and I can think of no major danmei author who also writes baihe, or vice versa. To date, the only author I can definitively point to who writes both danmei and baihe (as well as yanqing) is Xiao Wu Jun (小吾君) who, while not unknown, is not exactly a major author. There seems to be limited overlap between baihe and danmei in terms of popular subgenres as well. Again, I'm not very familiar with danmei as a genre, but my sense is that a good number of the popular works are historical novels or xianxia novels, while a significant proportion of popular baihe novels are contemporary romances (which would, I think, be legible to a reader of Western genre romance as such). In terms of sheer audience numbers, baihe is very much regarded as a niche genre relative to danmei (quite popular) and yanqing (massively popular).

Having impressed you with my vibes-based ramblings and multiple admissions of ignorance, let's get down to what I do know about the genre. Under the headings below, you'll find information about where baihe novels are published, a list of major baihe authors (plus a few who specialise in specific niche subgenres), a list of notable works that I think provide a useful foundation for understanding the genre, and information about adaptations of baihe novels. A major caveat is that I'm focusing almost exclusively on works by mainland Chinese authors, both because these make up the greatest proportion of baihe novels and because I'm most familiar with them. There are also baihe novels by authors from elsewhere in the Sinosphere, most notably Taiwan, but I am much less familiar with them, so that will need to be the subject of another post (preferably by someone who knows the field much better than I do!)

( Baihe novels and where to find them )

( On the state of baihe novel translations )

( Top 10 current baihe authors )

( 10+ baihe novels that are helpful for understanding the genre )

( A note about adaptations )

I am grateful to xiaozhu for providing valuable input (and making sure I didn't say anything too obviously wrong) into this post. Read their translation of baihe showbiz tragedy Burn here. Special thanks to superborb for doing the thankless grunt work of proofreading and checking each link.