CITY GUIDE >City Special
|
CITY GUIDE >City Special
|
|
Body of lies
By Lin Shujuan (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-01-12 15:12
A transvestite at a Beijing gay bar. Cui Hao It's about noon when Wang Bing arrives at Beijing Western Rail Station. The train bound for his rural hometown in Sha'anxi province is scheduled to leave at 7:30 pm. But the 26-year-old has come to the station several hours early, because he cannot stand waiting alone in his Beijing dwelling. He's visibly upset. Wang is headed home to discuss the marriage his parents - like many rural dwellers with children working in the city - have arranged for him. But neither they nor the prospective bride know Wang is both gay and HIV-positive. Wang managed to postpone his wedding last year but is out of ideas about to what to do now. Where he comes from, nobody talks about homosexuality or HIV. "They are taboos - disgraces not only to the individual but also to his family, friends and the community," Wang says despondently. Wang knows he has to call off the marriage. But what about his parents, who have been looking forward to seeing him settle down with a wife? "I can't find any reason to let them down," he says. It's a month before Spring Festival, and the station's waiting room isn't very crowded. But the first trickle of migrant workers, which will become torrential a week before the Lunar New Year, begins to flow in. Wang appears dismal compared to the other migrant workers, who are checking gift-wrapped luggage and calling home on their mobile phones. |
