Preventing Shanghai:
A Sexual Health Update

In Chinese, "Shanghai" with falling/falling rising tones is China's largest city. Shanghai with flat/falling tones means damage, usally emotional/corpal.

In Shanghai public health news, I found out that there are two groups doing HIV prevention outreach in the local MSM (men who have sex with men) community. I've begun interviewing their leaders and doing some outreach with them.

The first group has no website. It was attacked by hackers. It's just a small office in a local women's hospital that does some condom distribution and runs a hotline to answer sexual/sexuality questions. Their most common question is, "can I change?" They answer no. Progress. They also get calls from wives who wonder why they haven't had sex with their husbands in the past year. Time for a heart to heart, they say.

The second group, the Chi Heng Foundation, does more bar-specific outreach. Fun, fun, fun. "Do you know condoms can prevent HIV?" says your winking narrator as he pins a rainbow ribbon on a charmer's chest.

Only five more weeks in Shanghai. Five more weeks to help prevent a few more comrades from getting shanghaied. And understand the situation well enough to write about it for the English speaking world (hopefully for payment).