I moved to Taipei to avoid discrimination against Pengpeng, who must go to school with other children, despite the expensive cost of living here. In Penghu (澎湖), in the countryside where I grew up and stayed with my family after the diagnosis, many knew my story.
I brought our case to the attention of the media to help society extinguish its prejudice against AIDS sufferers, because I want Pengpeng to grow up in an environment free from AIDS-discrimination.
I want to show people that how we deal with AIDS is a social issue ? AIDS is not relevant to a particular individual's faults. It does not affect someone because that person is immoral.
I am an upright person and so was my wife, although inevitably we had lovers before we found each other. We had no clue of the source of our infection.
Stereotypes tell us that AIDS is transmitted by homosexuals. But this is not true. AIDS is mostly transmitted by sexual partners of whose infection you are unaware. They may even be unaware of their infection themselves.
I barely knew about AIDS before becoming a victim. Like other Taiwanese, I was only taught that AIDS is a disease resulting in terrible suffering.
Most people fear AIDS without much understanding, causing stigmatization of the illness. Health authorities should educate the public better about AIDS rather than seeking to prevent its spread simply by arousing fear.
On the other hand, because most sufferers fear to share their stories with the public, people can only understand AIDS from past stereotypes.
Society's perception of the disease is different from a decade ago. Sufferers should understand AIDS as nothing but a chronic disease and there is no reason why they should feel inferior because of the infection.
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