First such marriage in Jilin Province.
Thursday, April 22, 2004, marked an unusual day in the life of 36-year-old Chen Yan, an HIV carrier in northeast China’s Jilin Province.
On this day, Chen married Ding Guifang, 39, who is also an HIV carrier, and they became the first registered HIV carrier couple in this northeastern province.
With festive firecrackers, passionate applause and blessings from relatives and friends, the wedding ceremony for Chen and Ding was no different with any other ceremony in terms of the rituals.
But, Chen said, the wedding ceremony was a dream of the couple that had come true
They were infected with AIDS thanks to China’s infamous blood-for-money program. It’s good news to see HIVers in China treated as human beings and not as lepers.
Related post: The indescribable tragedy of AIDS in China
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By Tom
Amen to that. Big kudos to Premier Wen to finally bring this “state secret” out of the closet and have actual contact with an AIDS sufferer.
Of course it’s taken them 18 days to mention a couple of new apparent SARS cases in Beijing, so I’m not too rosy on health care transparency.
April 22, 2004 @ 9:13 pm | Comment
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By richard
Hell, it took them 10 years to acknowledge the AIDS crisis, and 50 years to acknowledge that China has a gay population.
April 23, 2004 @ 10:00 pm | Comment