Qing-Yuan Zhu

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**Qing-Yuan** is a waiter who has worked for both his family's and family friends' restaurants.

## Appearance

Standing a mere 5' and with a very slight frame, Qing looks incredibly delicate. While he's not precisely *fragile*, he's also not excessively strong for his size. With long, straight red hair and soft features, even if he were to dress in men's clothes, it would be easy to mistake him for a woman.

Typically, he's seen dressed in elegant qipao and other Chinese dresses.

## Personality

Qing-Yuan effectively has two personalities: his professional and personal ones.

Professionally, he's an effective server, able to provide gentle and convincing smiles and fully deserving of the reputation he has. Though most will never even know he's not a woman, he doesn't seem to mind being called one.

Personally, Qing is much more soft-spoken and awkward. When speaking with people he has no real connection to, he finds it much easier to be upbeat and gentle. In contrast, when he's speaking with friends or acquaintances, he's much more careful with his words and less able to be sure what to say. He frequently worries what people in his personal life think about him.

He's also worried about what his parents' reputation is, thanks to his being a crossdresser. Their personal stance has left his self-esteem somewhat fractured, and he often worries that he's only dressing this way out of some misguided phase, that he's either wrong about still feeling like a male or that he's more comfortable in women's clothing.

On top of that, he's protective of the people he cares about - perhaps partly because he never had anyone to be protective over him. He's aware that he's not strong or brave, but he still tries to step in when someone's being bullied or otherwise in trouble.

## History

### Humble Beginnings

Born in Guangxi, China, Qing spent just a handful of years before he and his parents immigrated to the US. His early life was much as one would expect; his parents are loving but strict, and they've been pushing him toward learning and eventually taking over the family business.

In his early school years, Qing had a reputation for being quiet but not bookish. The other students usually paid him no mind, and he seemed just fine with learning from the teachers without worrying too much about friends. He also learned Mandarin and English in addition to his parents' native Cantonese, both to be able to communicate in school and eventually in the restaurants he would be working in.

### Changing Interests

By the time he was in middle school, Qing-Yuan found himself drawn away from the uniform-seeming clothing he often saw men wearing and toward the softer, prettier stock of women's clothes. Being small and slender, it was also easier to find clothing that fit his frame in girl's clothes than boy's, and he would often talk with the girls in his school about their clothes.

It was all fine and harmless until he was spotted wearing one of the girls' clothes and taken in to the principal. Given a talking-to about what was going on (and asked if he was bullied into the clothes), they called his parents. Both of them apologised for the disruption, and asked to take their son home to decide what to do.

When they did, Qing was subjected to dozens of questions - his parents were, naturally he supposed, upset that he had done this and hadn't spoken to them about it. When he admitted that he just liked these clothes better, but he didn't feel any different than ever when he wore them, they agreed (reluctantly) to start to change his wardrobe.

### Steady Alterations

Not long after he started dressing in women's clothing, he found that people responded easier if he just didn't correct them on calling him 'she' or otherwise referring to him as a woman. While he didn't feel like one, it didn't *bother* him to be called such, and since he was still soft-spoken, he didn't bother with the confusion and arguments it caused when he didn't have to.

Those who knew his gender were, of course, frequently less tolerant about it - Qing spent much of his junior high and high school years being bullied for the clothes he wore, called any number of slurs and treated with disdain. Luckily, those phased out fairly quickly as he proved a pointless target - without many friends, he was easy to pick on, but since he didn't react much to it, they moved on.

The bullying didn't help his self-esteem any, but he was more worried about his parents' reputations - and for his family, having a child who "acted out" was far worse even than having a crossdressing son.

### Starting Work

When he was old enough, his parents suggested Qing start working in their restaurant as a server. With no reason not to, he agreed, and his quiet personality was put aside for the mask of professionalism. It was easy for him, pretending he was an outspoken girl, and since the patrons responded well to it, that became the mask he wore almost all the time.

However, not everything was perfect. His father especially had a hard time accepting that Qing's clothing habits didn't affect his manhood at all, and they were frequently at odds over it. It was one such argument that sent Qing over the edge into anger at his parents for the first time - his father had told him that it would "be easier" if he considered himself a daughter, not a son. Their relationship seemed irreparable after that, and Qing stopped working at the restaurant when it started to affect his professional mask.

### Grace in Aging

Once he left his parents' restaurant and finished high school, Qing started working for a family friend - someone who was actually much more tolerant and understanding of the young man's situation than most. It helped Qing to regain his full confidence in his professional abilities, and soon enough, he was able to begin college as well as work part-time.

Once he turned 21, he got his liquor license so that he could start working full-time at the restaurant. He still goes to school at night.