Band AIDS

There is an interesting NYTimes article on the webpage today about a city in the impoverished Yunnan province who has begun the difficult battle against AIDS. The article shows one city as a model for how the central government hopes to combat AIDS and the HIV virus.

The government rightly deserves positive press for this city-case study, but it's only one band aid on a broken system. For years they failed to address the problem because their public sentiment has been: "if people have free condoms or needle exchange programs, that means that people do drugs, have sex and possibly have AIDS. That's not possible. No one in China has AIDS or does drugs."

Frequently, as my students believe, they are told that only certain cities have AIDS. Many of these cities are in Yunnan province, where the income and economic output are the lowest in the country. My students made it sound like the 'bad seed' theory and that one poor province shouldn't ruin China's 'great' reputation.

Furthermore, the sex industry is rarely hidden in Asian markets... it's jokingly disguised. Go down my street to the Lian Xing Hotel. On the 4th floor they offer massages. By 'massages' they mean sex. It is more expensive to USE a condom in these places than to NOT USE one.

Granted, for an uneducated woman who moved from a central farm to the eastern coasts and big cities (the greatest movement of people anywhere, ever) there is good, easy money to be made in the skin trade. But, employees and customers alike share the same danger. This statement, posed in the article is way too true:

"She said the center's workers were trying to get infected prostitutes out of the sex business or at least to use condoms. But prostitution, often in karaoke clubs, frequently is the highest paying work available to women, so prostitutes with H.I.V. sometimes keep their condition a secret."

While the government has stepped up rhetoric and supported it with photo ops on World AIDS day, their commitment to prevention needs to start earlier, with kids. It was shocking for me to discover that when I addressed HIV/AIDS in my classes it was the first time that they had ever openly discussed it in a classroom. Sure, they knew about it and had talked about sex, drugs and HIV with their friends, but there was no room for proper education about the topic.

Armed with figures and statistics, I talked with them. They listened, asked intelligent questions and then sat and reflected on the matter. One student, a trouble maker, even pulled a condom out of his pocket when I got to the prevention side. Students giggled like 4th graders, but knew what it was. For an hour and a half we talked about the problem and the 'if I tell you 30 students, and you each tell 5 students and they each tell 5 students...' empowerment speech.

At the end of my lesson, I returned the condom to my student and said, "Here you go. You'll probably use this sooner than me." To which he replied, "Thanks, but I don't use them. It feels uncomfortable."

So much for breaking down the great wall...

From China with Love. paul.