Shanghai Daily news

Chung To is well-known in Hong Kong where he was named the city's ``Outstanding Young Person of 2003'' but his name is now becoming familiar in Shanghai -- at least to health-care workers and to students at Fudan University.
Last year, at his suggestion, Fudan introduced a course entitled Homosexual Health, Society and Science, the first of its kind to be offered by a major Chinese mainland university and which is devoted solely to the topic of homosexuality.
The syllabus includes subjects ranging from public policy to gay literature. Guest speakers for the course include well-known experts from various other disciplines.
Some of the lectures have drawn health-care professionals and members of the gay community as well as hundreds of students, including some from other schools.
``There's still a lot of misunderstanding and prejudice against homosexuals in China. We're not promoting homosexuality -- we just want to educate, '' says To, who was in the city last week to give lectures ahead of tomorrow's World AIDS Day. ``I'm pleased to see that more and more people are paying attention to homosexual studies.''
For a long time homosexuality was classified as a mental disease in China and this attitude began to change only three years ago.
To himself has ``come out'' and says that he is a homosexual who has never felt ``bad'' about it.
In 1998, he set up a Hong Kong-based charitable organization -- the Chi Heng Foundation -- with the aim of preventing discrimination against minorities in the community, including prejudice based on a person's sexual orientation, and to promote prevention of AIDS.
``I've witnessed how AIDS destroyed a whole generation of Americans,'' he says. ``I don't want to see a similar tragedy repeated in China.''
To emigrated to the United States with his family in 1982 and arrived in San Francisco right after the first case of AIDS was detected in the city.
``At that time, every day, the front page of every newspaper was filled with stories about the newly found disease,'' he recalls. ``People called it `gay cancer' because no one knew exactly what it was.''
At his school, one of his mathematics teachers died from AIDS which came as a big shock to the then 15-year-old.
``I used to meet him every day but all of a sudden, he passed away,'' To says. ``It was the first time that I witnessed the death of a person whom I knew from AIDS.''
After graduating from Harvard, To became one of Wall Street's group of ``promising young men.'' Working in New York, he watched as more of his gay friends died from the disease.
In 1995, his work in finance sent him to the Chinese mainland and he travelled around the country, including making visits to rural areas where AIDS had already struck.
``In some places, I felt like I was back in the United States of the 1980s,'' To says. ``Things were so similar. People had only a very slight knowledge of AIDS.''
At that time, illegal selling of blood was popular in Henan and other provinces in central China, especially among poor farmers who sold their blood to earn extra income.
In fact, what they got in return was not only money but also AIDS.
By the end of last year, China had reported 62,159 AIDS-registered HIV carriers but experts estimate the actual number is about 840,000.
``It really reduces you to tears when you see all this happening,'' To says. ``I was so worried and I desperately wanted to help.''
The non-profit organization he set up in Hong Kong receives private donations and support from the United Nations and from other international and Hong Kong agencies, including Hong Kong's Home Affairs Bureau and the Hong Kong AIDS Trust Fund.
All the donations go directly to help AIDS prevention among targeted vulnerable groups and to care for AIDS patients and their children.
In the longer term, To says, other projects will include subsidizing HIV testing, donating milk powder to HIV-infected mothers and subsidizing school fees for AIDS orphans around the country. Currently, more than 2,000 students, from primary school to university level, are being sponsored by the foundation.
``AIDS has created an explosion in the number of orphans who are now grateful for the opportunity they have been given to continue to go to school,'' he says. ``At the same time, with so much death and so little reason for hope, many farmers are worried more about ensuring a future for their children than they are about themselves.''
He says the children of AIDS victims are sent to public schools instead of orphanages because he doesn't want to make them feel they have been abandoned.
A program entitled ``Memory Book Project'' was launched last summer to help AIDS victims preserve family memories so they can be passed on to their children. The program also helps relatives maintain contact with the children and supports them in coping with stress.
Materials and instruction manuals have been distributed so that parents can include family trees, personal narratives, practical and moral advice, as well as photographs, letters, AIDS brochures and other memorabilia which is all put in the ``Memory Books.''
``We have also started a series of psychotherapy courses for the children of AIDS victims which we think will be important to them,'' he says. ``Sometimes, when you talk to the children, you feel their hostility towards the world. What we want to do is to gradually change their depressed attitude towards life and help them set up goals for their futures.''
He says he also plans to bring some students from other provinces to Shanghai to show them around the city's famous universities and scenic spots as a way of encouraging them to work and study.
The charity now has staff and volunteers working in 10 cities in China including Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen in Guangdong Province.
Almost every weekend, the staff go out on the streets in the cities to hand out free condoms and AIDS brochures.
The Shanghai office is currently hiring full-time employees.
Three years ago, To quit his job as the vice-president of an investment bank in Hong Kong to devote all his time and energy to charity work.
``I don't regret the decision, although I haven't had any regular income for the past three years,'' he says. ``My former job can easily be filled by others but not my current one.''
Then he adds, with perhaps a hint of a smile: ``Actually I'm quite proud of what I have been doing -- before, now and in the future.''