Sining Xiang | Foreign Uncle / 2021

a child leads the way

by Douglas Messerli

 

Sining Xiang (screenwriter and director) Foreign Uncle / 2021 [20 minutes]

 

In the past few years, we have been blessed by The New Yorker magazines sponsoring and distributing films, many of which have LGBTQ+ content.

    Foreign Uncle written and directed by Sining Xiang is one of the best of these. In this film, Sining (Li Li), living in the US, returns home to China with the man he describes as his American friend, Patrick (Patrick Boyd) actually his gay lover.

    The family, ruled over by the grandmother (Li Kui) and Sining’s mother (Ying Wang) and her sister Xin Tong, are delighted to welcome the friend, who brings a gift for Sining’s 7-year-old nephew Naonao (the charming child actor Haozhe Wang).

   The trio have cooked up some Chinese delights, which together they enjoy upon Sining and Patrick’s arrival, Sining lovingly hugging and playing with his nephew, while Naonao equally takes to Patrick, describing him almost from the beginning his American uncle, even though the women, to who Sining has not come out, have no idea just how correct their young charge is in his enthusiastic greeting.

     The meal goes beautifully, with Sining’s mother already trying to hookup the unmarried Patrick with a local Chinese woman. Patrick, answering through Sining’s translations is charming and his presence leads to many toasts.

     But underneath, obviously, he encourages his companion to come out to his mother so to not hurt her later. Sining, however, is simply not ready, nor our, apparently, his extended family members.

     They arrange to share the couch, offering the bed to Patrick and Naonao’s room to Sining, Naonao begging to share his new uncle’s bed, but warned, as he is about nearly everything he says, to simply behave.

      Sining and Patrick to accompany him to his ping-pong lessons, where the boy continues to show off his American uncle.

       The uncomfortable sleeping arrangements are dealt with, but late in the night, Sining slips into Patrick’s bed where they watch an internet movie together. But when morning comes, and Naonao rushes into the room, it is clear they have fallen to sleep in each other’s arms. Ying Wang, trying to scold Naonao off, discovers them just as they awaken, shocked by what she sees. Sining attempts to explain that they simply fell to sleep while watching a movie, but it is clear to his mother what the situation entails and in a conversation only in Mandarin Chinese it is clear that she is furious. Over breakfast she breaks down and leaves the table, the other following in anger, leaving only a perplexed Patrick and Naonao at the table, both high disconcerted with the fuss and noise around them.

      Patrick leaves just to wander off, without knowing that Naonao quickly follows after, meeting up with him and demanding, again only in Chinese, that he join him in seeing Xinghai Square. Patrick, thinking he is simply leading him to his ping-pong practice, follows and is wowed by the shopping square. Soon they return to the streets where Patrick buys the boy delicious street foods never before permitted for him to eat. They visit a vast seaside space finally, where a couple ask to have their picture taken with the odd couple, before the boy is ready to return home with his now very dear American uncle, not a titular title any longer, but a representation of a true bonding.

     What has happened at home in their absence, or how their return may effect the future is not established. But we do know that finally Patrick has been fully accepted into the family by the most non-judgmental and purest figure among them.

 

Los Angeles, May 7, 2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (2026).