globaltimes：Another brick in the wall

Lei Chuang is probably the most famous person in China who is a hepatitis B virus carrier. This is not an enviable title in a country in which serious discrimination against people with the virus still exists. However, the 24-year-old is unashamed to make his status known - if only to defend the rights of the staggering 100 million people in China like him.

Lei, a postgraduate student at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, has built a reputation as a fighter and an activist for the rights of hepatitis B carriers. He has sent Wen Jiabao more than 200 letters, asking the premier to dine with him in the hope of educating people about how the virus appears, and is spread.

Challenging misconceptions

"If I could get Premier Wen to eat alongside me, then the government will pay more attention to the problem of discrimination against hepatitis B carriers. People will come to realize that you cannot get infected by sharing food," Lei told the Global Times.

Lei learnt he was a hepatitis B carrier after having a regular medical check-up in junior high school. He and his elder brother were both diagnosed as carriers. However, Lei did not find this a problem until his brother graduated from university in 2007.

"My brother was turned down for jobs by several companies because of his status. My mum was desperate. She said that we should have tried an old TCM recipe even though we told her it was not her fault and that the recipe would not help. She said she wished she could be the carrier instead of us," Lei said.

Chinese schools, companies and organizations used to regularly screen applicants for hepatitis B during pre-enrollment or pre-employment medical checks. It was not until 2010 that China passed a law removing hepatitis B tests from these medicals. However, there are still hospitals helping companies to screen applicants secretly.

Lei has collected evidence alleging that a community hospital in Pingshan, Shenzhen was illicitly carrying out hepatitis B tests for a company. He has presented his findings to medical authorities in Shenzhen.

Hepatitis B virus is passed on predominantly through three channels: mother-to-child transmission, blood transmission, and sexual transmission. People cannot contract hepatitis B through normal daily contact with a carrier.

Lei was the first hepatitis B carrier to receive official permission to work in the food industry in September 2009, not long after a new Food Safety Law lifted the ban on carriers working in the industry.

But even after the law was passed, Lei found it difficult to get hold of the actual permit. Lei went to different medical institutions, and even contacted the head of the Zhejiang Health Bureau in order to be officially recognized. "I did this because I want to know that our rights are not only protected on paper, but in practice as well," he said.

Lei said that the strength to continue his fight against discrimination is partly down to the tragic story of one of his schoolmates.

In 2004, Zhou Yichao, a student from Zhejiang University where Lei spent his undergraduate years, and also a hepatitis B carrier, was given the death penalty after stabbing two civil servants, killing one and seriously injuring the other. Zhou was turned down for a civil servant post after admitting his hepatitis B carrier status.

"I believed he was a hero because his actions brought the plight of hepatitis B carriers to a wider audience in China. But now I realize he was just a victim of a poor system that failed to protect his and other hepatitis B carriers' rights. If only everyone can do something - even the smallest thing - I believe we can prevent tragedies like this from happening again," he said.

Apart from inviting Wen to dinner, Lei has also employed "performance skills" to gain public attention, most notably in posing with two red bricks.

And wherever Lei travels, the bricks go too. "I got them from the campus of Tsinghua University. I sit on them when I cannot get a seat on a train. And I use them as pillows when I want to lie down," he said.

But the bricks have a metaphorical, as well as a practical purpose. Lei has posed "knocking" the bricks into the walls of hospitals, restaurants, businesses and other institutions he is denied access to work in.  

The Chinese word for brick is zhuan, which is a homophonic partner to the word for "expert" in Chinese. This is a satirical dig at the so-called "experts" in Chinese schools, said Lei.

Letter writer

Lei has written letters to 523 such experts at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the same letter to 1,997 university presidents. He asked whether they would agree to admit hepatitis B carriers as students. However, Lei received only six sympathetic, but non-committal, responses, all of which avoided his simple question.

Lei admitted that his student identity has given him a sense of security, "I believe the school will protect me if, and when, I get into trouble," he said.

However, Lei worries that his reputation may be storing up trouble for the future. He added that he "will not be that active in anti-discrimination activities" after graduation.

Though his name is known around China, Lei does not believe the time has yet come for other carriers to go public. "There is no need for the hepatitis B carriers to expose themselves. It is a matter of privacy. Given general poor education about the virus, I don't blame carriers for protecting their identities.

"I hope that one day when a man tells you he is a hepatitis B carrier, you will react as if he has just said he has a bit of a cold," he said.