The members of Tianjin Hai He had 3 good reasons to celebrate the Mid Autumn Festival - their T-cells are good, their group is going strong and growing and they have a new office. The new office will allow the members of the support group them to meet regularly.
Tianjin Hai He extends its feepest gratitude to its generous donors.
The “Bird’s Nest” was not the only shiny new building which debuted for the Olympics. On the south of the city an equally impressive structure has just opened to the public, the very grand South Railway Station. The curves of the new structure are as interesting as those of the much talked of stadium and one feels as if one is in a very modern airport rather than anything as mundane as a the terminus of a rail system. In fact, this is one end of the new fast connection to Beijing’s port city, Tianjin which was unveiled without much fanfare in the days leading up to the Games Opening Ceremony. It may never become as iconic a building as its sporting cousin, but it is perhaps more significant in the long run.
It has become a commonplace for commentators to remark of the scale of the “new Beijing” and it is indeed impressive. My interest in the South Station, and the trains that depart from there is more personal. Fourteen years ago, my first train journey in China was to Tianjin from the main Beijing Station. I remember the taste of coal on the morning air, a ticket that was double the price paid by Chinese nationals and a two hour journey to Tianjin, alone in the rather faded splendour of the “soft seat coach”. In the years since, all of those images have been consigned to the history books. The coal briquettes, whose dust clung to my lungs, have been banished from the city. The special pricing for foreigners has been dropped, and now we must purchase our tickets from the automatic dispensers like the rest of humanity. The train, which would look well alongside anything the French can produce, whisked us to Tianjin in 30 minutes and even the expensive seats are all full.
Many of the changes have been gradual and almost imperceptible, but this latest “Great Leap Forward” is on a different scale. The old Beijing Station has been buffed up numerous times since my first encounter, but, despite the increasing amount of marble and the introduction of a greater variety of concessionary shops, it remains, at heart, a rather clunky leftover from early communist era architecture. It clientele too, remain equally proletarian. Women and men from all corners of China pass though its doors daily, carrying their dreams packed in fertiliser bags. Beijing acts as a magnet for the rural poor and, even without the Statue of Liberty, the main Station is their “Elis Island” entry point to the land of dreams. The South Station is a different world, all glass and steel, with gentle curves and a light airy sensibility. It is the Beijing Terminus of one of the fastest trains in the world, linking Beijing with its shy twin Tianjin. It is full of commuting urbanites, with narry a fertiliser bag in sight. Instead, all is self-confident, sophisticated bustle and unreservedly an urban experience; odd in a country in which most people are still farmers or from farming backgrounds.
The new Station remains a work in progress, only a few of the platforms are in use, the connection to the Beijing Subway has not yet open and some of the food concessions have not opened to the public. The incompleteness rather detracts from the full experience of the new communications hub. However, if the main Station was a monument to the aspirations of the New China in the latter half of last century, the South Station is a very eloquent suggestion of where China wants to go in the first half of this one. Thank God to live in interesting times!
At first glance, Xiao Xuen, a twenty one year-old Tianjin native (China’s third largest city) is what you would call the quintessential modern urban Chinese youth. He is into the latest European male fashion, head to foot. His hairstyle is very Japanese. He is web savvy and maintains a blog of his own. And like the rest of China’s growing urbanized youth, Xiao Xuen is very sure of himself. You can tell this from his demeanor and even with the way he held his pen while I was interviewing him. However, there are two distinct qualities that make Xiao Xuen different from the rest from his peers – one is that he’s gay and the other is that he recently found out that he is HIV+. He is not alone in this. That day in Tianjin, where I was asked by Fr. Loftus, to come along to meet with an AIDS support group that will soon become a brick project for the Great Wall Appeal, I met 5 HIV+ gay men who were under 30. I must say that the experience upon these men and the people who support them was quite different from what I expected.
Xiao Xuen found out that he was HIV+ on the same day as the Wenchuan Earthquake. He went to a hospital in Tianjin complaining about a rash on his left leg, but didn’t expect that he was going to be diagnosed with HIV that day. True to his form, he did what any young Chinese urbanite would do in a time of personal crisis, he went online to look for any sort of solace in the thousands upon thousands of online forums that exist in the Chinese cyberspace. That’s how he found about Tianjin Hai He, an HIV/AIDS support group of gay PLAs in Tianjin that helps persons with HIV/AIDS like Xiao Xuen on how to deal and live with the disease.
Sitting around the conference the table with these 12 men and watching how they interact with each other, I began to realize that Tianjin Hai He is more of a community than a group. It is rather unique in a sense from other AIDS support groups because it was organized and founded by two of its members, Da Hua and Li Hu, who are both HIV+. It is a very young community itself, just 6 months old. Before 2008, Da Hua and Li Hu had sporadic one to one meetings in public parks with other gay men who were struggling to come to terms with being HIV+. Their discussions not only focused on education about the disease but also on support and counseling which many Chinese PLAs badly need. With more people asking for help, the need for a better and more secluded place for regular meetings became obvious. They looked for sponsorship from various NGOs. Bricks was one of the very few that responded.
Tianjin Hai He had very humble but inspiring beginnings. Da Hua and Li Hu were both products of Ditan Hospital’s Red Ribbon Foundation in Beijing. The Red Ribbon Foundation provides counseling and support to persons living with AIDS/HIV. Many of the people who seek solace from The Red Ribbon come from many parts of China. Da Hua, who is pushing 60, was inspired by the work of the sisters and health workers in The Red Ribbon Foundation. He is a frequent visitor of The Red Ribbon. He makes it a point to go to Beijing from Tianjin to get his medication at Ditan Hospital. Although he tells us that there are hospitals in Tianjin that actually cater to “people with his disease” (his words), he prefers going to Ditan Hospital where the Red Ribbon Foundation is located because there he doesn’t get the “looks”. “Ditan’s Red Ribbon Foundation has a more personal feel to it”, Da Hua says. “If I could only bring this kind of support that the Red Ribbon Foundation gives to us to Tianjin then it would not only be helping me but also a lot of people infected with AIDS in Tianjin.” That’s how Tianjin Hai He began. With Li Hu’s sense of management and leadership and Da Hua’s charismatic personality the two were able to persuade other PLAs in Tianjin to actually face and deal with the reality of the disease, not alone, but with a community.
To date, Tianjin Hai He has 22 members and is still growing. They have different age, social and economic backgrounds. In an ordinary situation, you would not find these men in one room discussing anything. In Tianjin Hai He, the overall feel of the group is quite relaxed, familiar and friendly. It seems to me that the disease is not the the only important topic in their gatherings. I even dare to think that it comes second or third. They talk about the education and ways of preventing infection, and the problems that they face in their families and workplace, yes. But I think the more vital thing that occurs in these meetings is that each of the members experience a sense of the mundane. They talk about the latest gossip and the television shows that they have been glued to lately. They make fun of each other’s mannerisms, clothing and speaking. They don’t come to these meetings to lament at the fact that they have HIV/AIDS. They come to these meetings to experience the mundane aspects of life together. They cherish the ordinary things, mundane things that many people, people like me, have taken for granted.
If you liked this article, please consider visiting Our Projects Page