Facing AIDS & Living for Tomorrow, a Tianjin Experience. (Pt. 1)
Bricks contributor Vivencio Mercado writes this two part feature article for Bricks about living with AIDS in China. Recently, Bricks visited an AIDS support group in Tianjin that sought funding for expansion. Mr. Mercado came to Tianjin with Fr. Loftus for the meeting. He writes about his experience on meeting the people of Tianjin Hai He and the people who support them and reflects on the situation of PLAs (persons living with AIDS/HIV) in China. Some of the pictures that you are about to see are obscured to protect their identity.
Xiao Xuen
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.
Tianjin Hai He, Da Hua & Li Hu
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.
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