Life and Leisure
A handshake was all it took to transform a life
By Mei Jia (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-12-01 08:05
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AIDS patient Wang Mengcai looks into the mirror at Beijing Ditan Hospital's Home of Red Ribbon and declares himself immensely satisfied with his new haircut.
"I look more handsome," he says.
The 43-year-old is in the capital briefly, having traveled from his hometown of Baicheng city, in Northeast Jilin province. He was one of the AIDS-affected patients chosen for first-class service by hairdressers from L'Oreal' China's participating hair salons, as part of the company's Hairdressers Against AIDS campaign, that started in 2005.
"I'm not worried about doing the hair of AIDS patients," Yuan Xiaoyu, his hairdresser, says. "From L'Oreal's AIDS education and my own reading about the disease, I know that I'm at no risk from them. Wang is no different from my other customers," he says.
Things were much harder for Wang seven years ago when he was diagnosed with AIDS in October 2003.
He contracted the deadly infection from a blood transfusion for an injury in 1995.
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Even as late as 2003, people balked at talking about AIDS, and were ashamed to admit they were infected.
Wang remembers wrapping himself from head to toe, to avoid accidentally touching fellow villagers.
It was Premier Wen Jiabao who changed his life by shaking hands with him on World AIDS Day in 2003 at the Home of Red Ribbon. Wang was witness to Wen's announcement that day of the Four Frees and One Care policy (free medicines, counseling, testing and schooling, and economic help), becoming one of its beneficiaries.
"I never dreamed that Premier Wen would shake hands with 'dangerous' patients like me," he says.
On returning to Baicheng, Wang encountered a sea change in people's attitudes. It was as if they were thinking, "If (Premier) Wen's able to touch him, why not us?"
With help from Red Ribbon Home, Wang started a small business. Gradually, other villagers began to talk to him and share a meal with him.
Soon, Wang set aside the fact he was an AIDS patient and began living like everyone else.
To express his gratitude, he started working to better the lives of other AIDS victims.
Recently, he was voted village head.
Given the rising number of AIDS/HIV-infected people suing organizations for employment discrimination, Wang's appointment is encouraging, says Wang Kerong, at Ditan Hospital, who has been counseling HIV/AIDS patients for 13 years.
"Society's understanding of AIDS patients has progressed a lot in the past decade," says Teng Xiuqin, head of the hospital, adding that government allocations for AIDS prevention and control in the country have increased from 100 million yuan ($15 million) in 2001 to 2 billion yuan in 2010.
China Daily
(China Daily 12/01/2010 page20)