>If one's Chinese friends ever discover that one lived in a socialist country
>they always forewarn one never to use the Chinese equivalent of the very
>common word "comrade" - Tong Zhi, in its original meaning, because nowadays
>it is used almost exclusively to describe gays. I saw that cake - these are
>the right characters... So I wonder - since this is a new cake - what does
>it name mean - an Old Comrade or an Old Fairy?

A derived form of this that's used today is "tong shi" which means
workmate. The use of comrade in China sorta has faded out a bit, but
Alex is right; in the North they do use this terminology to refer to
gays. It's not widespread.