Seeking Sanctuary in Noah’s Ark amid an Ocean of Prejudice

Raising Peer Group Safe Sex Awareness among Shenyang Gays.

SUPERFICIALLY, the market stall is like many others in the business center of Shenyang, provincial capital of Northeast China’s Liaoning Province. Its wares -- fashion accessories such as handbags, sunglasses, ties, perfumes and jewelry – are aimed at youthful consumers. But upon taking a closer look, I see standing on one shelf a pair of display-purpose plastic condoms and the gay rainbow flag icon.

Young men come in twos and threes to browse, trying on various items as they chat to the stall’s 24-year-old owner, Xiao Zhe. Before leaving some will help themselves to complimentary condoms, courtesy of the Shenyang Ark Tongzhi Care Group, from the large black plastic bag inside the cabinet under a shelf.

“I’m gay,” Xiao Zhe tells me, candidly. His mission as a volunteer for the Shenyang Ark Tongzhi Care Group -- an organization run by gays that offers aid and support to gay men and women -- is to distribute 300 condoms to local gays each month and to promote Peer Group Safe Sex Awareness. “Tongzhi” -- comrade in Chinese -- is how the 120,000 gays among Shenyang’s total 6.67 million residents, and those all over China, now choose to be addressed. Xiao says that as his stall is a known meeting place for young gays it is both a convenient point of condom distribution and a suitable venue for letting them know just how imperative safe sex is. Arranging talks there is simple.

A study among homosexuals conducted by Doctor Zhang Beichuan, an AIDS/STD specialist, revealed that the AIDS infection rate among gays is climbing steadily around China. It grew from 2.5 percent (a figure arrived at with the help of 480 interviewees) in 1998, to 4.2 percent (from 800 interviewees) in 2000, to 5.4 percent (from 1,109 interviewees) in 2001. China currently has a total gay population of 5 to 10 million, according to 2004 Ministry of Health statistics. “Next to intravenous drug users, gays are the second most high-risk HIV/AIDS group in China,” says Dr. Zhang. The only way an MSM (man who has sex with men) can avoid being infected with HIV/AIDS, or common STDs such as syphilis and gonorrhea, is to use condoms.

The Ark’s founder is aged 32 and known as Tie Cheng. He tells me, “We currently have some 100 volunteers in the Care Group. Xiao Zhe is one of our nine core members. Together we have the potential to influence about 10,000 homosexuals in Shenyang, roughly 8.3 percent of their total number.” Founded in April 2002, the group is named after the Old Testament character Noah, who built an ark on God’s instructions in order that he, his family and samples of the contemporary flora and fauna might survive a massive deluge. Tie Cheng explains the analogy, “We need similar sanctuary from the ocean of ignorance and bias we face every day.”

Tie Cheng realized the true threat of HIV/AIDS infection among gays at a training workshop in Beijing in 2002. He recalls, “I suddenly felt compelled to act to protect myself and other gays from this death threat. The best way seemed to be to raise peer group safe sex awareness by means of the close knit national and international gay network.” Upon Tie Cheng’s return to Shenyang, the Ark Tongzhi Care Group was founded. Initially activities were confined to distributing condoms in gay bars, but it was obvious that another point of distribution would have to be found because, as Tie Cheng points out, “In Shenyang, few gays earn more than 1,000 yuan a month, so how could they afford to frequent bars where a bottle of beer costs 20 yuan?” Tie and his Ark fellows considered various gay hangouts and selected nine public places, among them parks, swimming pools and Xiao Zhe’s stall, as suitable venues for condom distribution and raising peer group safe sex awareness.

The peer group education aspect of Xiao Zhe’s brief was not without its teething problems. “My offers of free condoms and leaflets on safe sex were broadly rejected. Some said that wearing a condom spoils the pleasure of sex, others that using a condom signifies distrust of a partner,” he recalls. But despite many frustrations Xiao Zhe carried on, with the support of people such as Tie Cheng. “You can’t expect people to comprehend and embrace the principle of safe sex immediately,” Tie says. “The only way is to persist until they realize just how imperative it is.”

One person the Shenyang Ark Tongzhi Care Group has helped is 35-year-old Xiao Fei. He contracted gonorrhea when he first came to the city, with just 100 yuan in his pocket and no job. Tie Cheng loaned him the funds he needed for medical treatment and, as Xiao Fei felt too embarrassed to go to hospital alone, found a volunteer to accompany him on each visit. This considerably eased Xiao Fei’s anxiety. “I was moved by the Ark’s concern,” says Xiao Fei, who admits that until receiving help from the Ark he had been terrified of being exposed as gay and treated as an outcast. He says, “As a gay I felt totally isolated, and that I had no-one to go to, until I met the Ark Group.” Xiao Fei is now an active member, and helps to distribute condoms in a Shenyang park.

The Ark Group’s Peer Group Safe Sex Awareness Program has the support of the Liaoning Provincial Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC). It arranges training for volunteers and generally formalizes their work. In return, the Ark helps the CDC out with field research -- a favor indeed because widespread prejudice towards homosexuals in China makes them extremely reluctant to come forward and acknowledge their gayness no matter how worthy the cause.

Lu Chunming, director of the Department for AIDS and STD at the Liaoning CDC recalls, “Our work among this group initially drew a complete blank because we could find no approach to their community. We don’t even know the exact number of homosexuals in the province.” He added that the Liaoning CDC’s support of the Ark group “is without doubt a win-win deal.” Physicians are also supportive, in particular Dr. Jin Guihe of the dermatological department of Fengtian Hospital, who has received over 20 patients, all accompanied by Tie Cheng. “These patients feel themselves under great mental pressure and are terrified of revealing that they are gay, so neither I nor my nurses specifically refer to their sexuality, and we minimize their medical charges,” says Dr. Jin, whose understanding, non-judgmental attitude has prompted the Ark group to recommend him as a kind of family doctor to anyone wary of exposing their sexual orientation.

Money, or lack of it, is a big headache for Tie Cheng. The group existed on no aid at all up until January 2004, when Dr. Zhang Beichuan donated RMB 6,000 for a cooperative program. The Ark used this sum to rent a 30 sq m. apartment and set it up as a main office for the gay and lesbian hotline. Not long after, the group received an amount of RMB 12,000 from the Britain-based Barry & Martin’s Foundation, which enabled them to devise further activities aimed at raising safe sex awareness. But, Tie Cheng says, the group needs more funds for training volunteers, hire professional staff, and most importantly, promote safe sex awareness among the parents of gays.

This is a vital and challenging issue because, as Tie Cheng confirms, gays generally keep their sexual orientation from their parents. Many Chinese people reject even the concept of homosexuality because it is incompatible with the honored traditions of marriage and a male heir to continue the family line. Homosexuality in offspring would consequently be regarded as the ultimate scandal by most parents, many of whom would equate it with sin. This prevailing attitude is a source of spiritual anguish and consequently of mental health problems among gays and lesbians. From May to September 2000, Dr. Zhang conducted a survey on 950 homosexuals. His results showed that 67.3 percent felt lonely; 63.3 percent were depressed, and that 34.5 percent had considered and another 10.6 percent had actually attempted suicide. A further 38.0 percent felt demeaned by their sexual orientation.

Dr. Zhang speaks highly of the Ark Group. “All people are social creatures and the Ark provides a setting in which homosexuals feel secure enough to vent their true feelings and resolve their problems through discussion with like-minded people.” Although society is becoming increasingly tolerant, homosexuals are still a vulnerable group, says Zhang. He mentioned a local university in Liaoning whose school rules stipulate that anybody found engaging in homosexual acts should be expelled.

Meanwhile, neither Tie Cheng’s nor Xiao Zhe’s parents have any idea of the nature of their respective sons’ voluntary work, let alone their sexual orientation. Xiao Zhe’s father died several years ago and his mother has high expectations of him. He has no idea how to “come out of the closet” to friends and relatives. “I will not leave my lover and I cannot fail my mother; I’m living like a thief, so the ultimate sanctuary of a Noah’s Ark is still distant,” he says wryly. Turning to Tie Cheng he jokes, “If you should want to run any experiments in parental HIV/AIDS Safe Sex awareness, by all means start with mine.”