"I must have been the only fully dressed man to ever hang out in a gay sauna," laughs Wang Ming. "No wonder everyone stared at me." Wang can only laugh when he recalls the unique challenges he faced as a timid heterosexual man entering the baffling world of gay men. To break the ice, the bespectacled young man from the Yunnan provincial health education institute began playing chess at the sauna, handing out pamphlets and condoms to curious onlookers during breaks.

When the China-UK HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care Project sponsored the health institute in 2002 to start intervention work in the homosexual community of Kunming, Wang knew little about gay lifestyles.

He struggled to find even a single member of this somewhat-invisible community in this provincial capital of southwestern China.

This changed after the China-UK AIDS project office hosted an AIDS conference in Kunming in 2002, inviting Professor Zhang Beichuan as speaker. As a pioneer in HIV/AIDS intervention work, Professor Zhang invited readers of his national newsletter to participate in the conference. Not many came to the conference in the daytime: but many more sneaked into the hotel at night to collar Zhang.

In the end, 14 brave souls pledged to co-operate with Wang as volunteers for a fledgling project called "Colourful Sky."

They included Li Jinyong, the eventual team manager. Li and Wang joined forces to improve awareness in the gay community.

At first, the sauna's owner wasn't too happy to see the team. He feared condoms could attract unwanted attention from police and his business would suffer. But in 2004, when the provincial government required condoms be made available at all hotels and entertainment venues, his worries subsided. Colourful Sky has also installed AIDS-related billboards inside Kunming's main gay bar, winning the owner's permission after hard negotiations. The owner even agreed to have AIDS-themed gatherings in the venue, inserting AIDS prevention tips in the night show quiz. Prizes include condoms and lubricants.

Joining hands

Co-operation between Wang's official institute and gay volunteers has not always been smooth, but joint efforts can pay off for all sides. The provincial health institute coordinated a face-to-face meeting of the gay community and police in which they discussed the prevalent problem of gay people being blackmailed. Police promised to do their best to respect a gay person's right to privacy while also investigating the crime.

In 2005, the Colourful Sky project's activity centre was born where visitors leaf through newspapers and magazines, play ping-pong, watch videos, and meet new friends. Qiu Feng, 30, is one of the four full-time employees. After a car accident he quit his east coast job in 2004 and headed off for west to Yunnan, the province where urban Chinese youth traditionally seek spiritual solace.

He first learned of Colourful Sky via an ad on the Internet recruiting volunteers for the centre and joined last year. One day last October, a man on the verge of suicide, called the Colourful Sky hotline and told Qiu he had had unprotected sex and was now noticing AIDS-like symptoms. During a marathon series of phone and Internet conversations over the following days, Qiu tried to convince the caller to take a blood test. "It's hard enough to be gay in this society," says Qiu. "Let alone be a gay person with AIDS."

The test was negative. "I don't know who was happier or more relieved him or me."

AIDS, like homosexuality, remains taboo in certain regions of China's mainland. But as the province with the fastest growth of the virus, Yunnan has also been the fastest to come to terms with the issues raised by the epidemic.

More than 20 grassroots community groups like Colourful Sky have sprung up in Yunnan, mainly through the support of the China-UK HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care Project.

Coming into the open

The threat of AIDS is still growing. The latest estimates by the UN and the Chinese government on HIV prevalence puts China at somewhere around 650,000, with new infections rising to 70,000 in 2005. That's nearly 200 new cases a day.

As its deathly reach expands, the virus has challenged society to rapidly rethink attitudes and age-old prejudices. One of the most unexpected side-effects of AIDS in China is that it has given voice to otherwise-silent groups.

Governments, as well as the rest of society, have finally found they have no choice but to listen.

In March 2004, Colourful Sky co-founders Wang and Li were invited to talk on a provincial radio phone-in programme, where they openly discussed not only AIDS prevention but also homosexuality and the little-known gay community life of Kunming. Following the show, letters of protest immediately landed on the table of the programme producers. Seven more shows have followed.

The letters have stopped.

Editor: Wing