MicroCharity | Stories About Sacima

【专栏】| Conlumists >微公益 | MicroCharity

By Yibai, Jointing.Media, in Shanghai, 2024-11-02

Look inwards to explore the self. Look outwards to explore the world.

We met ten years ago at a business conference. She had been invited as an overseas scientist in the field of microbiology, and I was sitting next to her.

The first impression I had of her was that she was very capable and very thin. Somehow we got into a conversation about public service and I told her about JM, my spare-time non-profit project, which helps to promote and fund small and micro public service projects by interviewing and documenting small stories in China’s public service circles. She recalled her nine-month unpaid leave to return to China to work on AIDS prevention, single-handedly contributing money, effort and resources and doing the work of an entire NGO all by herself.

I have always admired the lone hero and immediately said that JM would like to interview her and record her stories. However, it seems that she did not want to publish it, only as a casual chat between friends, occasionally revealing some fragments of the past and feelings. It was through her that I learnt that as long as the CD4 count is controlled by medication, people with HIV do not have too many problems in their daily lives. However, because infected people have always been discriminated against by society, prevention and screening of potentially high-risk groups is very inconvenient, which in turn poses a greater risk to public health.

At that time, she found resources from overseas to donate several free HIV testing devices to Henan, which were placed in public places for potentially susceptible people to test themselves; organised exchanges between overseas experts and local CDC practitioners to share their experiences in prevention and control; helped the local government to improve the environment for free and anonymous testing of HIV carriers; and gave money to local carriers who were able to work to find jobs and help them buy medicines, etc. She recalled that without the support of government leaders, it would have been difficult for her to do what she wanted to do. During this time she also encountered some strange things, such as people (healthy people) actually offering to help her pay for trips abroad.

The content of my conversation with her is blurred by years of erosion, but I was impressed by her compassion for the disadvantaged, her intrinsic drive to do public service, and her strong sense of action as I listened to her talk about her past.

During the new coronavirus pandemic a few years ago, when food transport was blocked due to nationwide closures, the crisis of HIV carriers running out of medication also worried her for a while, and she even asked me for resources for transport channels. But there was nothing I could do to help. She is thousands of miles away from China and it is even harder to do anything.

Recently, when I was talking to her about depression, I found out that she had also given psychological counselling to AIDS patients. She said:”I was very popular when I counseled AIDS patients. I think the first thing is that I really understand the disease, and the second thing is that I don’t think of them as ‘patients’ at all, or as different from myself, and no matter what you say, your own ‘heart’ is perceptible to the other person.”

Some people distinguish people by their words, some by their actions. I like to distinguish people by their deeds, because thoughts are intangible, while actions are the manifestation of thoughts, and it is how we act that distinguishes us from one another.

Travelling, exercising, caring for her family and participating in local charity work are all part of her retired life. Five years ago I invited her to join JM to use her travel photographs as illustrations for JM articles, which she gladly accepted. The publication of her photographs always requires a byline, and she loves to eat sacima(a kind of dessert)，hence the name. Her public bio is just a few words:

She loves photography, animals, travelling.

She focus on Gay/AIDS living conditions, anti-discrimination and prejudice.

She was also the initiator of a public welfare project for people with AIDS.

Sacima loves to travel and now that she is retired she has more time to do so. She has travelled to many places I have never been or even heard of. Following her camera, I have seen the slums of Bangladesh, the blue glaciers of Iceland, the ancient city of Petra in Jordan, the snow in the mountains of Switzerland, the sunset over the lake city of Udaipur in India, the afterglow of the Rhône-Kokhang Stadium, the pyramids of Egypt under the sun, and the small town of Schwetzingen, Germany, in the midst of the Christmas night scene…….

Out of professional habit, I said, “You can open an account “Follow Sacima to see the world”; I also said, “You have taken so many photos from all over the world, you can have your own photo exhibition”. She said she was just trying to enjoy travelling, not to record.

This year Sacima went to Italy to climb mountains. I was envious of her, not so much because she was going around the world to challenge the peaks, but because of her physical strength and courage at the age of over 60. Even now I am not as strong and brave as she is, let alone at her age. Many of my peers around me say that they are becoming more ’sociopathic’ as they get older. They don’t want to get involved with new things or meet new people, they like to stay at home and be quiet. Personally, I think that from a psychological point of view, this is the experience of people approaching the age of life, and they need to look back on the road they have travelled in order to reposition themselves and their relationship with the world. From a physical point of view, ‘at fifty the kidneys begin to decline’, the kidneys are the masters of the will and the gall is the master of the mind. The hormone levels and physical condition at this age dominate the emotions and feelings, and middle-aged people often have a deficiency of qi and blood, and the yin and yang begin to decline. If a person’s life is divided into four seasons, autumn harvest and winter storage, sitting on their own results, looking at the elderly above and below the children, will look forward to their own retirement life. Although there are differences in people’s innate endowments, each person’s ability to fight against the laws of nature is actually formed later in life. Sacima is the one who is physically and psychologically strong in fighting against nature.

The other day I was making a video with my nephew, who is still in kindergarten, and he was telling me an adventure story from a picture book. I jokingly asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, and my nephew replied with childish face: An explorer. Travel around the world as an adult is a childhood dream for many people, but not many adults fulfill their dreams. My nephew at the kindergarten sees the world through picture books, and Sacima, who measures the world with her feet, is enriching her retirement. If the world is a train on the move, and my nephew has just boarded the train, Sacima is already looking forward to the end of the line. When my nephew grows up, if he still wants to be an explorer, he can interview Sacima. At that time, one of them was already a teenager, and the other one had already seen the mountains and the rivers, what a fun exchange and dialogue it would be. Just thinking about such an image is very beautiful.

She told me about a near-death experience while walking alone up a mountain, and shared her thoughts about a trip to Jordan to visit the Al Khazna. It was over ten kilometres to the monastery and over 900 uneven stone steps. I shared the walk with my sister. She was about to give up and go back, but was encouraged by two old Scots , in their 80s, to take her time and eventually made it to the top, of which she was very proud’.

She also reflected: “When I was young, I read Mao’s quotations and experienced the Great Criticism, but I didn’t learn anything about world history, religion, culture, art, music, and so on. On this trip, I once again felt that I was extremely poor in all aspects of knowledge. At this age I can’t digest anything I read. All I know is that a lot of films are made in Jordan: I used to watch the old Lawrence of Arabia on TV at Christmas, and of course Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and I love The Martian. It was only this time that I read that Jordan is the birthplace of three major religions. Even though it’s a Muslim country now, the Jordan River is where Christ was baptised and many Christians come on ‘pilgrimage’. Jordan is said to be mentioned several times in the Bible. I didn’t go to see where Jesus was baptised and I didn’t want to ‘goof off’ and take photos.”

I was afraid that my memory would fade with time, so I began to record her story while she was still climbing mountains in Italy. But I always felt that the material was not rich enough, and when I put it aside, she went to the West of the United States. Now it says that she has booked a trip to Vietnam.

I told her that Anh Hung Tran’s three films about Vietnam were worth seeing. She asked for details, said she wanted to find out.What kind of photography will humid Vietnam bring her? I look forward to it.

Above are the stories about Sacima from my point of view as an observer. Inwardly, exploring the self; outwardly, exploring the world. Seeing heaven and earth, all beings and herself.

Editor Note:

1. CD4 cells, which are T lymphocytes with CD4+ T molecules on their surface, are an important type of immune cell in the human immune system. Because HIV attacks CD4+ T cells, their test results play an important role in assessing the effectiveness of HIV treatments and in assessing a patient’s immune function.

2. Raiders of the Lost Ark’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was set in the Temple of Kazini in the ancient city of Petra, Jordan); Jordan’s ‘Valley of the Moon’ was the setting for The Martian in Mars Rescue.

Translated by DeepL, Wind
Edited by Wind
Photo: Sacima camping on a hilltop in Nongkhai Province, Laos, with a donkey he has met (early winter 2024).

Related: