While millions of Chinese opened their wallets to the tsunami victims, twenty-one Chinese AIDS patients joined them and donated 420 yuan (about US$50) Tuesday.
"Most of us are poor peasants and we don't have much money, but our hearts are with the victims," the patients, who are from Linfen, a city in the northern province of Shanxi, said in a letter to Red Cross Society of China and its Shanxi branch office.
"We want to make our humble contributions... We sincerely wish people there would recover from the disaster soon and remain safe and healthy," the letter said.
The patients, who are currently undergoing free anti-retroviral treatment in a city hospital, said they were grateful for the care and help they had received from the government and society when they were in need.
"The people's help improved our confidence in fighting against the disease," they said.
Li Xuejun, an official from the Linfen Hospital of Infectious Diseases, said the hospital helped the AIDS patients post the donation to the provincial Red Cross Tuesday afternoon.
Zuo Tong, a senior staff from the provincial Red Cross, confirmed that the hospital had called to ask how they could transfer the donation to the Red Cross.
"We were touched. the AIDS patients themselves are in difficulties and in need of help. Their sense of responsibility and care for others are respectable," she told Xinhua over the phone.
According to the official web site of the Red Cross Society of China, the donations and promised donations it has received so far have reached 20 million yuan (US$2.4 million). About 5.2 million yuan has already been transferred to the International Red Cross and relevant organizations in affected countries.
The tsunamis triggered by December's strong earthquake have reportedly claimed the lives of nearly 150,000 people in some South and Southeast Asian countries. Last Friday, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao announced that China would provide another 500 million yuan (US$60.46 million) of humanitarian aid to the disaster-hit countries in addition to the US$2.62 million already donated.
(Xinhua News Agency January 5, 2005)
