Opening the AIDS Discussion: 'The Blood of Yingzhou District'

Yang's film traces the lives of HIV positive orphans in rural Anhui Province. The narrative shows that the abject poor adults in Anhui province feel often sell their blood, and later on receive HIV-infected blood. Lack of awareness and proper testing facilities ensure that children born to infected parents contract the disease. Orphaned at a young age and living in a largely destitute province, the only viable hope for these children is that their relatives take them in.

In the Chinese family structure, it is common for grandparents to raise their grandchildren while the parents work. It is also common for children to live at home until they get married. What becomes clear from the film however, is the warring conflict between traditional Chinese family values and the deep-seeded fear and discrimination against the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which exists on a national level.

The featured child, Gao Jun, remains silent throughout the film, and the audience watches as his extended family debate whether or not the HIV-positive child is worth retaining as a family member.

Ruby Yang and the producer she collaborated with, Thomas F. Lennon, have worked in the documentary medium for years. Together they have launched an AIDS prevention campaign on Chinese television and have reached more than 200 million Chinese viewers with "The Blood of Yingzhou District."

Yang and Lennon's efforts have reached the population, but the prejudice against HIV/AIDS in China has always been and remains harsh: 1985 saw the first documented cases of AIDS, which, rightly or wrongly, the government attributed to foreigners and native Chinese who had traveled abroad. As the incidence of the virus increased, already marginalized groups such as homosexuals and drug users shouldered more serious prejudice than ever before. However, by the beginning of the 21st century, the epidemic had reached each and every one of the 31 Chinese provinces, and it became necessary to unearth the topic from hushed silences and create a forum for action and discussion.

In yet another example of the Chinese media lauding some trumped up civil rights accomplishment, a Shanghai Daily article that covered "The Blood of Yingzhou District" was titled "AIDS film helps end prejudice." A lovely notion, and a powerful film. But before we start start handing out any awards to China for ending all AIDS-related discrimination by showing a documentary, let us keep in mind that China only removed homosexuality from the official state list of mental disorders in 2001, HIV-infected foreigners are not allowed to enter the country, and the film documents a current real-life family that literally cannot decide if their HIV-infected relative has any value as a human being.