Comments on: AIDS Education with Chinese Characteristics

By: zuraffo

zuraffo — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 17:30:47 +0000

In the last paragraph. Funny how it was correct at its first appearance.

By: zuraffo

zuraffo — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 17:28:22 +0000

Ben, I hate to do this but it spells “susceptible”.

By: Chip

Chip — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 15:38:35 +0000

This goes up there with the rampant lack of information on Hepatitis B (a disease which is, ironically, also rampant). I’m constantly amazed at the total ignorance of how it is spread, and how it isn’t. The intense discrimination of it from personal relationships to the job market frightening too. China’s method of dealing with diseases by systematic discrimination is ineffective at best, inhumane and feudal at worst.

By: Poagao

Poagao — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 17:01:45 +0000

In light of so many fundamentalists claiming that homosexuality is a choice, you might want to work on your wording. In the post you said that you think “it (homosexuality) is a personal decision”, and your friend said people “should be gay if they want”. It’s an identity rather than an action. I can force myself to use my right hand, but I’d still be left-handed (not the best analogy, I know). I know you didn’t mean it that way, I’m just sayin’, is all.

By: Jenn

Jenn — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 03:13:54 +0000

I worry about the vast majority of the Chinese people who are not well educated like your friend. Not only may they have misconceptions about how AIDS is contracted (in villages in Yunnan provinces many people will not even take money from people known to have HIV) and who is more prone to it, but really know absolutely nothing about STDS or sex in general. It is shocking to me that the general population would no so little about these topics because of the national family planning policy. Everything makes it seem like they should know more.

By: Ken Erickson

Ken Erickson — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 01:38:25 +0000

I’ve run into other interesting bits of Chinese folklore about HIV. A Chinese man I knew used to tell me that he wasn’t afraid of HIV because he could “tell by looking” if someone was healthy. Of course, the only way to know if you are NOT infected with HIV, if you are sexually active at all, is with an HIV test. My friend was afraid to get one because, he said, he was certain his doctors would blab to his family that he was gay.

Maybe in a big, public clinic, the anonymity you might desire for an HIV test would be there. My friend was an upscale Chinese gay guy who went to a private doctor.

Messages about HIV need to go hand in hand with the availability of HIV testing. How is that working out, these days, in China?

When my friend was in the hospital, some years later, and dying of an AIDS related infection, a doctor approached me in a crowded Beijing hospital elevator lobby and said in a loud voice, “So, how long has Mr. X known that he had AIDS?” I was astounded because the elevator lobby was crowded with people, some of whom spoke English.

But these days, blowing your cover as a gay or lesbian person in China should be less worrisome than contracting HIV. It should be, but it may not be.

By: Keith

Keith — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 18:56:18 +0000

I agree with Poagao. It does sound like you’re asserting that one’s sexual orientation is a decision. Of course, the decision is whether to act, for behavior can be chosen but orientation can’t.

Also, as far as I know, it’s not more likely for homosexuals to get HIV than heterosexuals. It all boils down to the type of sex you have. If either straights or gays have nothing but blow jobs, the risk is very low.

By: James

James — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 16:11:16 +0000

Seems like China is catching up with this HIV/AIDS epidemic, percentage of growth may be higher than U.S. Indeed, it is alarming….

At the end of 2003, an estimated 1,039,000 to 1,185,000 persons in the United States were living with HIV/AIDS CDC has estimated that approximately 40,000 persons in the United States become infected with HIV in adults, adolescents, and children, in the 33 states with long-term, confidential name-based HIV reporting….

By: Maureen

Maureen — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 15:29:05 +0000

As always, a well-observed post. Your writing reminds me of Peter Hessler (who else, right? every American-in-China-writer’s dream) bcs I can sense how you really respect and get along with the people you meet, even as you grope towards the essence of that strange, omnipresent, shrinking-then-growing cultural gap of “…with Chinese Characteristics.” The effects of authority are strange– while there are some areas where information is woefully lacking (say, AIDS), every so often I am surprised by how savvy people are at picking apart propaganda and social phenomena. I never know how to predict when I’m about to receive a party-line mantra, or a shot of startling honesty.

By: Emil

Emil — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 12:56:57 +0000

Haha
How could anyone claim there is no prostitutes in China?

ough I dont see it to strange why chinese people think aids is just something that gays could get. At least what I have experienced in nothern europe, aids is nothing you really think about when having intercourse with anyone, because it is considered non-existant, unless you are gay