It's 10:00 AM Wednesday morning and a handful of people in
downtown Beijing are gathered in the shade of a van that's decked
out with a huge poster of basketball star Yao Ming, showing his
stretched out arm as he gives blood.
It's World Blood Donor Day and all around the city the scene was
repeated as the Capital's blood plasma is now collected solely on a
volunteer basis.
In the shade of the van, 52-year-old Wang Yanqin fills out forms
as she waits her turn to donate. "I succeeded in persuading my
husband to join the group," grinned the bespectacled, chunky
lady.
In the 1980s when blood-giving quotas were set in state-owned
work units, the former saleslady and her colleagues used to draw
straws to decide who would get 'pricked."
"The unlucky ones were rather miserable and I even cried on my
way home," she recalled.
Her attitude changed after she was hospitalized. Even though it
was one of Beijing's best hospitals she says, "Blood was always in
short supply."
That was when she made up her mind to do something "good for the
patients".
Since her hospital stay Wang has volunteered to donate her blood
five times.
Like Wang, many Chinese people are changing their attitudes
about blood donation.
At 77 years old Wang Shuiying remembers how people used to try
everything to avoid giving blood when she was a volunteer nurse at
the Beijing Red Cross Blood Center. She was insulted and called
"vampire" by people who grudgingly gave their blood despite
receiving gifts and time off work.
"They feared that donating blood would harm their health and
spread disease," she said.
The gray-haired lady is glad more positive publicity is helping
to raise people's awareness. All across the country celebrities
have been recruited to promote the dire need, the ease and the
safety of donating blood.
On World Blood Donor Day last year, Wang Yanqin remembers seeing
Yang Lan, a popular TV host donating her blood in Xidan. Earlier
this week 58 well-known actors showed up en masse at the the Red
Cross clinic to give blood.
According to Beijing Red Cross all blood used in hospital now
comes from volunteer donors and younger people are the most
generous. "In the first five months of this year, 86 percent of
volunteer donors were under the age of 35," said Ma Guodong, vice
director of the clinic.
After giving their blood, Wang and her husband left the van with
a package of gifts: an umbrella, a mug, a computer mouse and a cup
of yogurt. "I'll be back next year," she said.
(Xinhua News Agency June 15, 2006)