Bricks recently visited Jilin Province and caught up with Dr. Zang of Zhen Guan Ai AIDS Center. Right now, the project is already closed still the good doctor and his patients would like to extend their gratitude to the generous donors of Brick 3. This time we were able to video tape our conversation with Dr. Zang. See the video for more details.
It was the annual diocesan pilgrimage and the crowd of more than 5,000 pilgrims were in festive mood. The Mass on the 8th of September was the high point of the three days of celebration. The setting was perfect, a tree-lined valley where, even without the addition of a well designed Lourdes Grotto, the veil between earth and heaven seems particularly thin. The bishop’s sermon was perhaps a little pious, but the delivery was firm and the tone commanding, hinting at the steel in his velvet words. The congregation were actively attentive and the ushers had almost to beat the faithful back as they tried to touch his robes at the end of the celebration. Within an hour, the crowds had thinned to a few hundred hard core devotees in front of the grotto, some praying, others singing songs and the rest eating packed lunches. In a while even they would be gone, bus bound for remote villages, shriven, nourished and ready to face the challenges of living the Christian life. It was a very successful annual pilgrimage.
The pilgrimage could have taken place almost anywhere in the Catholic world, the dynamic is instantly recognisable. I could have been in the West of Ireland not the North East of China. I find it somehow reassuring that the Catholicism of two such different places could have such similarities. Commentators, who tend to be more educated than the communities they are observing, usually highlight contrast, and take on a slightly superior view when introducing local customs of far away places. On a mild September morning, I saw only the familiar, and strangely comforting, folk Catholicism that was struggling but still vibrant in my 60’s west of Ireland childhood. I don’t think the feeling was simply nostalgia, but rather an emotional expression of an opinion I have long had about the importance of popular religion. In a glade in North East China, I might be educationally and culturally miles apart from the peasant women who predominated in the crowd, but when we knelt to recite the Hail Mary, those differences were stripped away and we were sisters and brothers praising the Mother of the Son we all worship.
The fact of this pilgrimage, a very public event, might seem surprising to a Western reader, used to a diet of negative commentary on religious freedom issues in China. In fact, within undeniable constraints, there is a surprising degree of real freedom here. The pilgrimage I participated in took place with the active support of the police. Their presence ensured some measure of coordination in a situation where the crowd was just barely held under control by the familiar rhythms of the liturgy. Also, with the constraints, the Diocese in Jilin is thriving. Through this pilgrimage and other similar events, it is actively bonding the faithful together in a new way. It has to. Religious Freedom, in my opinion, is not the most pressing issue, China is changing very rapidly and so are the needs of the Catholic faithful. The farming women and men were content to come away from a pilgrimage having prayed to Mary and touched the robes of their saintly bishop, but their urbanised sons and daughters will want more. The question remains, can the Church here move quickly enough to provide it?
I came away from this pilgrimage, like my sisters and brothers, both shriven and nourished, but also confident that Our Lady is helping the Diocese of Jilin to find its answers to its challenges. I hope she will, in equal measure, help me find the answers to my own.
Last month, Bricks closed its Brick 3 project for which Bricks and the good Dr. Zang were very happy about. Just yesterday, we received an email from Dr. Zang again thanking the donors of Brick 3 for the help they have extended to the Zhen Guan Ai AIDS Center for purchasing the AIDS scanner. He also sent some pictures of the scanner being used in the clinic.
Again, on behalf of Dr. Zang and his clinic, we thank the people who donated for Brick 3.
The Bricks Great Wall Appeal team went to Changchun last Sunday to meet up with Dr. Zang to purchase the ultrasound scanner for his AIDS clinic. If you would remember, Dr. Zang heads the Zhen Guan Ai AIDS clinic in a rural town not far from Jilin City. He and his clinic is working with 300 farmers infected with HIV/AIDS through blood sales and we set up an appeal for their clinic 6 months ago for an ultrasound scanner that would help him and his clinic provide better diagnosis for his patients who are all people living with HIV/AIDS (PLA’s). Bricks, through the generosity of our donors, was able to provide the good doctor and his clinic with a brand new portable ultrasound scanner. An ultrasound scanner ensures that PLA’s receive the swift diagnosis which this technology makes possible, portability means that the Zhen Guan Ai clinic will be able to use the scanner without requiring patients to make the sometimes long journey to his clinic.
Dr. Zang, together with two of his superiors, was very happy to see us. We went to the Changchun Office of Mindray, to purchase the DP3300 ultrasound scanner. Mindray is a Shenzhen company well known for manufacturing quality health care devices. Dr. Zang and his superiors thank all the people who have donated for Brick 3. They have assured us that the scanner would be used wisely and solely for Zhen Guan Ai AIDS clinic and have invited us to visit the clinic in September to see it being used first hand. Some good news, finally.
On that note, Zhen Guan Ai has told Bricks that they have not found any new cases of HIV/AIDS in the area that they administer this year. Dr. Zang’s director as well as Dr. Zang mentioned to us that their efforts not only in the treatment but also on informing the patients about the disease has slowly been paying off. Bricks, in behalf of Dr. Zang and Zhen Guan Ai thanks all the people who have donated for this project. We hope to do further projects with them, but interestingly, the experience is already opening them up to develop their own fundraising plan, which is exactly what Bricks hopes to achieve.
