East West - The Asian American Lifestyle Magazine

By I-Ching Ng

Chinese American filmmaker Ruby Yang believes that there is something even more horrible than AIDS in China: the indifference and discrimination against the children who are orphaned by the epidemic.

Determined to change mainland China's perception of the next AIDS generation, Yang ventured into the epidemic zone with a camera crew to dispel the misconceptions that breed stigma on the children affected by AIDS.

The result is the Oscar-winning documentary The Blood of Yingzhou District, which chronicles the lives of the Wang sisters, HIV-positive teenager Nan Nan and toddler Gao Jun over the course of more than a year.

Its riveting images have haunted viewers in China and abroad and helped to disprove the misinformation about AIDS that perpetuates prejudice against children in AIDS households.

Even though they are healthy, the Wangs were crippled by economic burden when their parents died of AIDS, leaving behind three daughters to face discrimination at school.

Meanwhile, Gao's uncle and relatives shun any connection with him and leave the toddler to his mentally disabled grandmother, who lives in a dilapidated hut next door. The child is forced to lead a nomadic life seeking shelter in homes of various HIV-positive couples. Finally, AIDS-infected Nan Nan is compelled to silence, fearing that her sister's new husband would seek divorce if he finds out the family shame.

The idea to film the abandoned AIDS orphans in China came to Yang when she worked as the series editor for Bill Moyers' “Becoming American: the Chinese Experience” in 2003. “Stories of China's AIDS orphans were headline news then, and I really wanted to address the problem publicly,” Yang says.

She then approached fellow film producer and director Thomas Lennon (The Battle Over Citizen Kane) to collaborate on the project. “Tom said showing the AIDS documentary here doesn't do anything,” says Yang. “It should be aired in China, where it's a matter of life and death.”

It took the pair two years to raise the necessary funds, and they founded the China AIDS Media Project in 2004 to direct public service announcements (PSAs) and produce documentaries to increase AIDS prevention and awareness in China.

Their first PSA featured basketball stars Michael Jordan and Yao Ming and has reached millions of Chinese viewers. The celebrity endorsements helped Lennon and Yang gain the trust of China's Ministry of Health and won them assistance from the state-owned news agency, CCTV.

Contrary to the western belief that the Chinese authorities are bureaucratic and opaque about the transmission of public information, Yang says censorship is not a concern at all: “We encountered incredibly little disturbance from the government and no resistance from local stations.”

On the other hand, HIV-positive sex workers and homosexuals are a different story. “The Ministry of Health talks about high risk groups all the time, but the TV programs are not allowed to openly talk about their lifestyles,” Yang explains.

But still, Yang shows that it is not impossible to do.

Last year, she produced an interview with To Chung, a Harvard graduate who founded the Chi Heng Foundation to help AIDS orphans. The interview of the openly gay advocate was aired on several local stations in Shanghai and Yunnan. “We just have to keep pushing the envelope,” Yang says.

Yang subsequently filmed a half-hour interview with a female college student who contracted AIDS via a “normal” heterosexual courtship. The broadcast gained national attention and helped dispel the myth that AIDS is an “immoral” disease that results from sexual promiscuity.

“There's a prevailing stigma against AIDS patients and their families. People are afraid if they reveal the problem, they will lose their jobs or can't get a wife. Our goal is not to change society, but to change its attitudes toward the disease,” explains Yang.

Making that goal a reality was an odyssey that took much longer than expected.

The project was green-lighted after two milestone moments. The first was the national outbreak of SARS, which pressured the Chinese government into being more open about health care crises. “They realized if they don't act quickly, it would be detrimental to the country's progress,” Yang says.

Another turning point was Bill Clinton's 2003 visit to China. “The American president embraced an HIV-positive young man during his visit. A few days later, the Chinese leader shook hands with a HIV patient in public. It was a symbolic moment that the Chinese government would deal with the problem openly,” recalls Yang.

With national media attention on the documentary, the desolate kids were heralded as the poster children of the AIDS anti-stigma campaign. They were later met by China’s prime minister Wen Jiabao in Zhongnanhai. “It's an amazing journey. We just couldn’t imagine it would happen,” Yang says. “When the Chinese government sticks to a cause, they will do it to the maximum.”

Yang admits that gaining access to the AIDS orphans was an arduous process. It was almost impossible to cut through the red tape in the heart of the epidemic zone in Henan, where AIDS is spread via black market blood transfusions.

In 2005, Yang resorted to venturing into nearby Anhui Province. Her team befriended Zhang Ying, a local entrepreneur-turned-advocate who built a new facility to house AIDS orphans in a small town called Fouyang.

“After the fierce crack down of illegal blood selling in Henan, many of the 'blood merchants' fled to Fouyang. The Fouyang authority thinks the AIDS problem doesn't stem from them, therefore, in a way, they are willing to deal with it and work with the media,” Yang explains.

Since then, Fouyang has become a “model town” for AIDS prevention and the local AIDS orphans have received free education and medication under a national campaign.

Chronicling the heart-wrenching ordeal of the AIDS orphans was emotionally draining for the filmmakers, who tried to keep a critical distance from their subjects. “It took me a long time to edit the piece. Sometimes I'd do the shooting, other times I'd get my cinematographer to visit the villages,” Yang says.

Yang did not look at the footage until a few months after it was shot. “I couldn't stop my tears every time I looked at Gao Jun. But after you have looked at it for a thousand times, there's a limit to your emotion. In the end, you just concentrate on getting things done,” she says.

Winning the coveted Academy Award was the last thing on Yang's mind; she is content that her film has done an invaluable public service. “Originally, these kids' only friends were chickens and pigs. Everybody shunned them. Gao Jun was in such bad shape. I thought he couldn't make it. And now he's talking non-stop,” Yang says. “I'm glad they receive over-due affection now. My goal is to open a public dialogue and begin the process of caring for these children."

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For more information and upcoming screenings, visit www.bloodofyingzhou.com .