Word: beichuan
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...million people vulnerable to HIV in China today, with sex workers, men who have sex with men and intravenous drug users - all communities thought to have higher rates of infection than the general population - facing the highest risk. After the new government numbers were released in February, Zhang Beichuan, a researcher at Qingdao University, told the state-run media that the high number of gay men entering into heterosexual marriages is a contributing factor to the increasing spread of HIV. Extra-martial, high-risk sex puts both those men and their wives at risk, according to a study Zhang conducted...
Zhang, 36, has little time for such expressions of grief. As a Communist Party cadre from Beichuan, he was working in a village nearby when the tremors hit. The hamlet's 2,000 survivors were cut off from the outside world. Finally Zhang learned that his hometown had been flattened. "Everybody cried, but I couldn't cry," he says. "What would people think?" The next day Zhang trekked six hours to get help. It would be more than a month until he was able to visit the remains of his home. His wife's and daughter's bodies were never...
...local government tentatively plans to turn the remains of the city into a memorial park. Zhang now heads the Beichuan department of commerce, working to attract new businesses and industrial development. But the strain on him and other local bureaucrats is severe. A quarter of government officials died in the quake. Zhang says his job keeps him from remembering what happened to his wife and daughter. "When I'm buried in my work, I think they are still alive," he says. "But when I look up and see that drawing, I remember they...
...Father While Zhang works to rebuild Beichuan, Lu Shihua toils to figure out why the town collapsed. The single father, 40, lost his only child when the Beichuan No. 1 Middle School crumbled. His wife had died 16 years earlier giving birth to their daughter Lu Fang, and Lu had resolved to raise her on his own. It is with a similar determination that Lu now fights for an answer to why the school caved in, crushing his daughter. Lu had just had lunch with her in town an hour before the quake struck. He felt the earth move...
...promise to keep quiet. Those that didn't acquiesce faced official intimidation. Lu says police frequently questioned him; the only shop with a fax in his village has been told not to let him send documents. Nevertheless, Lu continues. In late October, he received a statement from Beichuan officials denying any flaws in the building. Lu isn't satisfied. "As long as I am breathing, I will seek an answer to my question: Why did the classroom building of Beichuan No. 1 Middle School completely collapse?" he asks. "I just want to have an answer so all those who passed...