原文标题：Asian mediaGay dramas for straight womenWill Thailand’s Boys’ Love shows be the next K-pop?亚洲媒体直女也追同志剧泰国的“男孩之爱”会成为下一个“韩流”吗？A Thai take on manga storylines is big in Japan
泰剧风靡日本
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THE “2GETHER CAFE”, a pop-up restaurant on the second floor of the Tower Records Shibuya building in Tokyo, is a hub for a new Asian craze.
“2GETHER 咖啡馆”是东京Tower Records 涩谷大楼二层的一个快闪餐厅，也是亚洲新风潮的中心。
Visitors, all women, swoon over wall-to-wall pictures of Bright Vachirawit and Win Metawin, stars of “2gether: The Series”, a Thai TV drama about two students who fall in love.
来访者皆为女性，她们都会对整面墙上布赖特·瓦奇拉威和温·梅塔温的照片倾心，两人是泰国电视剧《假偶天成》的主演，这部电视剧讲述两名男学生相爱的故事。
The actors, both men, are depicted exchanging flirtatious glances and hugging. Airy Thai pop music plays in the background.
剧中的两位男主演互抛媚眼互相拥抱，背景中播放着轻快的泰国流行音乐。
“I didn’t know Thailand had such handsome men,” says Kobayashi Maki. An ardent fan of the TV series, she is studying Thai because of it.“我竟然不知道泰国有这么好看的帅哥，”小林真纪说道。她因这部电视剧成为了狂热的粉丝并开始学习泰语。
[Paragraph 2]Thai soap operas about gay romance, generically known as “Boys’ Love” (BL) or sometimes “Y series”, are stealing hearts across Asia. 泰国男男恋爱题材的电视剧，一般称为“男孩之爱”（BL）或者“Y系列”，正在亚洲各地收获大批粉丝。
Though the first shows appeared in 2014, the genre, including over a hundred series to date, took off outside Thailand during covid-19 lockdowns, thanks in part to many being available on YouTube. 尽管该类型的首部作品于2014年面世，但在新冠期间，该类电视剧有100多个系列在泰国以外地区逐渐流行起来，其中许多作品可以在油管上观看。
In Japan, a key market, the hashtag Thai numa or “Thai swamp”—a reference to the shows’ addictiveness—is popular on social media. 在日本这个关键市场上，#Thai numa或“沦陷在泰剧里”标签在社交媒体上很受欢迎，表明了这些节目的成瘾性。Thailand promotes BL content at international trade shows. In June 2021 the industry secured 360m baht ($10.4m) in foreign investment.泰国在国际贸易展上宣传BL内容。2021年6月，该行业获得了3.6亿泰铢（1040万美元）的外国投资。
[Paragraph 3]BL originated as a Japanese manga storyline, which became popular in the 1990s. It has always been mainly consumed by straight women, just as the Thai televised version is. BL源于日本漫画情节，在1990年代开始流行，主要受到异性恋女性的喜爱，泰剧BL也是如此。
“I get to see two handsome men together. It’s a feast for my eyes!” says Takabayashi Otoha, a 20-year-old Japanese fan. 20岁的日本粉丝高林音羽说：“我看到两个帅哥在一起了，这简直是一场视觉盛宴！”Rujirat Ishikawa, a Thai academic at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, says some women find it liberating to watch romance as a sexual “outsider”, with no female protagonist to make them feel jealous.石川鲁吉拉特是东京青山学院大学任教的泰国学者，她说一些女性认为观看同志剧是一种性别上的“局外人”，因为这些剧中没有女主角会让她们产生嫉妒之心。
[Paragraph 4]For the shows’ Thai producers, the global success of another group of delicately featured young men—South Korea’s K-pop stars—was another inspiration. 泰国BL的制作人汲取了韩国K-pop明星（另一个纤细外貌的年轻男子团体）在全球的成功经验。They have copied elements of the K-pop business model, including heavy use of “fan services” such as meet-and-greet events to boost revenues. 他们复制了K-pop商业模式的一些元素，包括大量使用“粉丝服务”来增加营收，例如见面会等。Poowin Bunyavejchewin of Thammasat University in Bangkok calls Thai BL a “melting pot” that mixes “the Japanese ingredient and Korean ingredient”.泰国国立法政大学的Poowin Bunyavejchewin称泰国的BL是一个“大熔炉”，混合了“日本元素和韩国元素”。
[Paragraph 5]Thai BL’s success has also started to attract more gay viewers. A recent survey suggested that more than 20% of the TV shows’ fans in Thailand are gay. 泰国 BL 的成功也开始吸引更多的同性恋观众。最近的一项调查表明，在泰国，这部剧20%以上的观众是同性恋。That may be in part thanks to a growing number of storylines about the discrimination they face, notwithstanding Bangkok’s reputation as a gay mecca. 这可能部分归因于有越来越多的剧情反应了同性恋所面临的歧视问题，尽管曼谷被誉为“同性恋圣地”。
The shows’ success is itself a rebuke to that chauvinism. 这部剧的成功本身就是对那种偏见的反驳。“These days, you see BL couples featured on big advertisements in public. That used to be unthinkable,” says Mr Bunyavejchewin.Bunyavejchewin说：“如今，你可以在公共场合看到男同情侣出现在大型广告上，这在过去是不可想象的”。
[Paragraph 6]This puts the Thai government in a slightly awkward position. 这让泰国政府处于一个略微尴尬的位置上。While embracing the BL shows’ potential to burnish Thailand’s soft power, it tends to play down their gay content when promoting them; it is also opposed to same-sex marriage. 虽然政府认同BL节目有提升泰国软实力的潜力，但在推广时往往会淡化同性恋的内容；政府也反对同性婚姻。
Back in 2007 the government briefly banned BL comics under obscenity laws. 2007年，政府曾根据淫秽法禁止了 BL 漫画的出版。The production companies will be wary of provoking another backlash. 制作公司将谨慎对待，以免引起另一波反弹。“If they go too far, they might get crushed,” warns Ms Ishikawa. 石川鲁吉拉特警告说：“如果做得太过分，可能会被摧毁。”In Thailand, Boys’ Love is in, gay rights not so much. 在泰国，同志剧很受欢迎，但同性恋权利却不受重视。
（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇量590左右）原文出自：2023年3月11日《The Economist》Asia版块。
精读笔记来源于：自由英语之路
本文翻译整理: Irene
本文编辑校对: Irene仅供个人英语学习交流使用。
【补充资料】（来自于网络）《假偶天成》（2gether: The Series）是一部泰国浪漫青春爱情剧，于2020年2月21日在泰国GMM 25电视台首播。该剧改编自小说《2gether》并由GMMTV制作。剧情主要围绕两位大学生Tine和Sarawat的爱情故事展开。这部剧在泰国和海外都受到了广泛的关注和喜爱，其中以亚洲地区的观众居多。剧中主演的表演和角色形象深受观众喜爱，剧中歌曲《คั่นกู》也成为了一首流行的泰国歌曲。该剧也因其描绘了一段同性恋之间的爱情故事而在LGBTQ 社群中受到了很高的评价和赞誉。
"chauvinism" 是指一种过分的爱国主义或种族主义，通常表现为对自己的国家、种族或性别的过度自豪和自我标榜，同时对其他国家、种族或性别持有偏见和歧视。例如，男性主义（male chauvinism）指的是一种认为男性优越于女性的态度和行为，女性常常被歧视和剥夺权利本质是一种狭隘的思想观念，它试图通过否认和歧视其他群体来强化自身的认同感和优越感。
【重点句子】（3 个）The actors, both men, are depicted exchanging flirtatious glances and hugging. Airy Thai pop music plays in the background.剧中的两位男主演相互抛媚眼互相拥抱，背景中播放着轻快的泰国流行音乐。They have copied elements of the K-pop business model, including heavy use of “fan services” such as meet-and-greet events to boost revenues. 他们复制了K-pop商业模式的一些元素，包括大量使用“粉丝服务”来增加营收，例如见面会等。The shows’ success is itself a rebuke to that chauvinism. 这部剧的成功本身就是对那种偏见的反驳。
自由英语之路
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